About Lewis Ritter

Lew Ritter is a retired teacher from Bergen County NJ. He has held many careers from working in the Air Courier industry in the 70’s and 80’s, the computer industry in the 90’s as a Unix Operations personnel and finally as a Library Media Specialist in Bergen County schools.

His interest in writing began in college with a series of correspondence with Larry Gelbart, the legendary producer of MAS*H. He wrote an impassioned letter to CBS protesting the potential cancellation of the series in its freshmen year. Gelbart was so impressed with the letter that the two individuals corresponded for several months. Gelbart sent him scripts and allowed him to pitch potential ideas for episodes.
In 1975, Lew joined the Mystery Writers of America and attempted to write short stories for the Ellery Queens Mystery Magazine. He became a fan of 80’s shows such as The Paper Chase and Thirtysomething.

His screenwriting career began in 1985 when he attended a screenwriting seminar hosted by Ron Peterson. He wrote several entry level scripts but reached a new level in 2011 when he became a Finalist in the Wild Sound Film Festival’s Classic Spec script competition for Magnum P.I . The script received a Table Read by actors at the same Festival in 2016.
He worked with Peterson and T.J. Mancini of Crossroads Entertainment in L.A on several projects. Turbulence has undergone several major changes since its creation in 2013. Since then, it has developed into a potential streaming series with five years of episode ideas. He has partnered with Joe Rosario, a writer and stage director on the revisions and creation of Mr. Zak, a series about a wounded veteran who works in an inner-city school. In 2018, Lew began work to turn the script into a novel. He was a frequent contributor to Larry Brody’s TV . This is his first novel, and he plans on writing more novels in the world of Turbulence. His goal is to become an overnight success after forty years.

Unique traits: Perseverance- the willingness to ignore defeats and rejections and continue to move toward your goal which was to become a professional author, writer and screenplay writer.