A total of eight screenwriters have been selected for the 2013-2014 Bell Media Prime Time TV program, with high-profile Canadian writer and producer Michael MacLennan at the helm as executive producer in residence.

The new team of writers will work with MacLennan, former showrunner and exec producer of Bomb Girls and consulting producer on CTV’s Flashpoint, to develop both their skills and workshop scripts aimed at prime-time audiences. Previous success stories from the program include BBC America/Space’s Orphan Black.

The participants are:

• Lynn Coady, an Alberta-based novelist whose works include Strange Heaven and The Antagonist
• Marsha Greene, whose recent credits include scripted and reality series for Discovery Channel, Food Network, Family Channel and Global TV, and the short film Chinee Girl
• Fiona Highet, whose theatre credits include Calendar Girls and End of Civilization, and film and TV credits include Picture Day and Bitten
• Rachel Langer, the B.C.-based co-writer and producer of sci-fi web pilot Aternus, who recently completed a stint in the Continuum story room
• Bryce Sage, a B.C. based writer who recently wrote, directed and starred in documentary Survival of the Fabulous for CBC’s The Nature of Things
• Ryan Spencer, an L.A. transplant living in Toronto, who is currently the script coordinator and writer’s assistant on ABC/Disney’s Lucky 7, which will premiere on City this fall
• Blain Watters, an Ontario-based actor and playwright who wrote the short film BearHug starring Sarah Gadon
• Shebli Zarghami, a Quebec-based writer whose recent credits include web series Agnes & Harold, an official selection at the L.A. Comedy Festival.

The five-month program provides a team-based approach to TV series development, covering the skills for working in a story department, developing dramatic series material and making it as a writer in the TV marketplace. Writers work both on their own scripts in development and on scripts brought to the program by the EP in residence.

Clone thriller Orphan Black, which airs on Space and BBC America in the U.S., was developed in 2008 by then-exec producer in residence Graeme Manson and the program residents.

The Bell Media Prime Time TV program is part of the company’s $1.8 million TV Skills Development Initiative, a series of training programs for Canadian TV industry professionals.