1998 Grad Wins
Tony Moton, West Hollywood, Calif., was one of five finalists (out of more than 100 entries) for the Samuel Goldwyn Screenwriting Competition for his feature-length screenplay, "All Bets Are On," a semi-autobiographical story of a 12-year-old Little League player and his relationship with a philandering grandfather during the summer of 1969 in Chicago.
After working at The Omaha World-Herald as an entertainment and pop culture columnist from 1991-1999, Moton accepted a teaching fellowship at Drake University and the Des Moines Register for minority journalists. From 2000 to 2001 he worked as an investigative reporter at Pitch Weekly, an alternative newspaper in Kansas City, Mo., winning an award from the Kansas City Press Club for a cover story on a sodomy case. He went to the Las Vegas Mercury in January 2002, covering news, sports and dance music, and earned top sports writing honors twice from the Nevada Press Association.
He was accepted into UCLA's MFA-Screenwriting Program in September 2002.
Moton earned the master's degree at UNL. He got his bachelor's degree in humanities and mass communications from Augustana College, Rock Island, Ill. He had worked as a sportswriter in Chicago, Minneapolis, Louisville, Ky., and Moline, Ill., before joining The World-Herald.
