School of Communication Alumnus Jazmen Darnell Brown (B.S. ’07) received a 2024 Writers Guild Award for “Daytime Drama” for his writing on “Days of Our Lives.”

“It was great to have that experience of going to the award show and winning the awards, but to me, it was all because of the hard work I did to get to this point and the relationships I had fostered.” said Brown.

While in the Digital Media Production Program (DMP), Brown began developing these relationships and spent the summer of his junior year in Los Angeles for an internship where he connected with people in the film industry. His opportunity to write for “Days of Our Lives” came from the reputation preceding him from these relationships. Overtime, Brown developed from a staff writer to Executive Story Editor throughout three seasons of Starz’ drama series, “Black Mafia Family” and is currently the co-creator for the spinoff series.

Brown’s biggest piece of advice to anybody trying to come out to LA or become a writer, other than perfecting your talent, is to start utilizing the people you know. What most refer to as “networking”, Brown calls “making friendships” and says, “Spend time fostering a village of support. You can be a great writer but if you can’t get your script in the right hands, you’re going to have a hard time”. He stressed that while it is not the determining factor for one’s success, it can certainly help. One of his most constant figures of support is a fellow School of Communication graduate, Stuart Arbury, who joined Brown on the summer internship. 

Utilizing these relationships changed everything for Brown’s career, and he credits FSU for lots of his successes, “I think that hustle mentality that Florida State gave us was very helpful. When it was my time to get involved, I didn’t feel like I was behind. I felt like I could get into the mix right away because there was so much work going on in the Media Production Program.”