Micah Wright


Micah Ian Wright is an American writer who has worked in film, television, animation, video games and comic books. He is a tribally enrolled member of the Muscogee Nation.

Biography

Limited early biographic detail that Wright has posted on-line about himself, indicates that he was the child of a parent in the US Navy and lived overseas. Wright was born in Lubbock, Texas and graduated from the University of Arizona with degrees in political science and creative writing. While at school, he was involved in a weekly sketch comedy show named Comedy Corner where he started as a writer and eventually became a performer.
After graduating and moving to Los Angeles, Wright got a job at Nickelodeon Animation and was soon hired to write on The Angry Beavers. Episodes that Wright wrote were nominated for a Daytime Emmy in Sound Mixing and for an Annie Award for Outstanding Achievement in a Daytime Animated Television Program. After Wright finished work on The Angry Beavers, he created Nickelodeon's first action-adventure pilot, Constant Payne, an anime-inspired Dieselpunk science fiction show, with an aesthetic inspired by "Russian wood-block propaganda posters of the 1920s and 30's." Constant Payne was shelved because Nickelodeon was angered over a union organizing effort by the WGA, that Nick suspected was spearheaded by Wright, and later due to network fears of violent programming in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks. Since 2001, Wright has worked primarily in the field of video game writing. He is a member of the Writers Guild of America, west where he is the chair of the Video Game Writers Caucus. He also served as the vice chair of the Native American and World Indigenous Writers Committee, and on the steering committee of the Animation Writers Caucus, and was on the Guild Negotiating Committee is 2014.
In 2007, Wright and his writing partner, Jay Lender, were instrumental in creating the WGA's first ever Video Game Writing Award as part of the traditional film and television Writers Guild Awards. According to the WGA, the award is designed "to encourage storytelling excellence in videogames, to improve the status of writers, and to begin to encourage uniform standards within the gaming industry, to spotlight a wide range of quality work by video game writers, raising their profiles and validating their contributions to this rapidly maturing medium".
His graphic novel Duster was released in 2015.
In March 2016, the film They're Watching which he co-wrote and co-directed with Jay Lender was released day-and-date to theaters and on video on demand services by Amplify Releasing. It is currently available on Netflix.
In March 2015, Wright was a consultant on the HTC Vive Virtual Reality game TheBlu. Immediately struck by the possibilities of the new artform, he worked on several other VR projects, and wound up creating the first live-action virtual reality filmmaking course in the world for Emerson College, where he was serving as an adjunct professor. He taught the class for two years.
From 2017 to 2019, Wright performed the duties of the Network President and Chief Creative Officer of First Nations Experience , America's only Native American broadcast television network. While at FNX, he set the network's programming goals, conceptualized new shows, drafted the budgets, built collaborative partnerships, oversaw original series production, and negotiated with PBS affiliates to broaden network distribution, as well as recruiting and hiring FNX staff to produce their original television programs. While at FNX, Wright added 9 new broadcast affiliates which represented 27 million new viewers, and spearheaded the creation of an Android and iOS app for viewing the network anywhere in America. He also led FNX into original programming for the first time in the network's history, when he created and produced 204 episodes of 12 original series which spanned music, comedy, science, history, cooking, and broadcast journalism, including Native Vote 2018, a live election night event covering election night 2018. Simulcast live on FNX and on radio via National Native News 180 radio station affiliates across the United States, the program utilized reporters from Indian Country Today, the biggest online Native news outlet. The evening was a groundbreaking and record-setting event for Native America, bringing together the 3 biggest Native journalism entities to cover a national election in real time for the first time ever.

Controversy

Shortly before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Wright published an anti-war protest book, You Back the Attack, We'll Bomb Who We Want! The book, a satirical collection of old military propaganda posters repainted to feature modern anti-war messages, featured an introduction where Wright claimed to have been a former United States Army Ranger Sergeant, who experienced combat in Operation Just Cause, the 1989 invasion of Panama. Wright gave a radio interview on Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman. In 2003, gossip columnist Richard Leiby wrote a two-page article extolling Wright's poster work for The Washington Post. Wright's credentials were immediately questioned by real Rangers who contacted Leiby. A year later, when Wright learned Leiby was writing an exposé questioning his military service he confessed and apologized online.

Film