Glenn Gers has cultivated a multifaceted career spanning over 25 years as a screenwriter, director, teacher, and emerging novelist. His journey offers valuable insights for creative professionals navigating the entertainment industry.
Using art as a solution to anxiety from an early age, Gers experimented with various media before focusing on screenwriting. Despite advantages—good education, supportive parents, and living in New York during the indie film boom—breaking into the industry proved challenging. It took him 12 years of working as an office temp while writing scripts and taking meetings before earning a living as a writer.
His first industry connection came through his mother, who worked at a bookstore where she met a producer seeking a script reader. This serendipitous connection enabled him to show his first script to an agent.
With over 400 videos on his YouTube channel, Gers has created a substantial resource for aspiring screenwriters. Having taught himself when few resources existed, he accumulated years of observations about writing that he now shares through this platform. The channel, which maintains a DIY aesthetic, allows him to offer perspectives he feels are missing from conventional screenwriting education.
A central theme in Gers’ teaching is challenging traditional notions of artistic achievement. He argues that the belief that a “real artist” makes a full-time living selling their artwork is fundamentally flawed. Even during his successful screenwriting career, Gers primarily took “art jobs” rather than selling original creative work.
He encourages creators to find value in the creative process itself rather than external validation: “Focus on what you can control; strive for incremental improvement; create independently even for small audiences; cultivate love for the process; work consistently.”
Currently writing a novel set in 1930s and 40s New York, Gers describes the transition to prose as requiring him to “forget the language of screens.” While screenplays rely on implying visual elements, novels provide complete control through words alone. His novel explores a romantic triangle between a criminal drifter, an avant-garde painter, and an heiress.
“Very few artists make a living from their art,” Gers observes. “Making a living at your art usually turns your art into your day-job.” He distinguishes between being paid for original art—which he calls “incredibly rare”—and working as an “art employee.”
Despite these realities, Gers celebrates the current technological era that allows artists to create and distribute work independently. His own definition of success has evolved to focus on completing work to his satisfaction and reaching even a small audience who connects with it.
Through his varied career and generous sharing of knowledge, Glenn Gers exemplifies the persistence and adaptability required for a sustained creative life while helping guide the next generation of storytellers.
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