When asked what she currently does, Erika Green said that she tells stories — in addition to being the baddest b*tch in the room.

Green, a supervising producer on ABC’s “How to Get Away with Murder,” took part in a Q&A at Syracuse University on Thursday as part of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications’ Leaders in Communications 15th Annual Conversation on Race and Entertainment Media. The conversation was held in the Joyce Hergenhan Auditorium, which was filled to capacity.

Hub Brown, an associate dean for research, creativity, international initiatives and diversity at SU, introduced Green. Last year, he said, Green won the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Writing in a Drama Series and was nominated for another award in the same category for 2016.

Brown added that Green had previously worked on the writing staff of CBS’s “The Mentalist” for six seasons, during which she was a part of the Writers Guild of America’s inaugural Writer Access Project. She also participated in the CBS Women’s Writers Showcase.

Charisse L’Pree, an assistant professor of communications at Newhouse, moderated the conversation with Green.

Green said she originally started her career on a completely different path, first in the hospitality industry and then in business. While her path to entertainment was not direct, it has impacted her writing, she said.

“It sort of informs you as a human being because you have all of these experiences … I don’t think I could be a writer today had I not taken all of these twists and turns,” Green said.

She said having to continually course-correct throughout life made her nimble as a writer because she also has to course-correct in her writing.

L’Pree then turned the conversation to focus on Green’s experience on “How to Get Away With Murder.”

Green said she wanted to be part of the show from when she read the pilot episode because it was “weird and dark” and told the stories of pragmatic people. Her interest was also piqued, she said, because on TV, stories with anti-heroes who are non-white heterosexual males are rarely seen.

Green said the writers’ room for the show is probably the most diverse group she has seen in her life, especially in comparison to “The Mentalist,” where she was the one person of color on staff and one of a few women.

In the writers’ room for “How to Get Away with Murder,” Green said everyone is bringing their own experiences and their own issues, which opens conversation that wouldn’t be able to be had if the underrepresented writers were the minority in the group.

“(The writers’ room) is eye-opening, it is interesting, it is vulgar and it’s dirty and then it always results in something interesting happening on screen,” she added.

One of the episodes that Green is proudest to have written on, and for which she is nominated for an NAACP Image Award this year, was the fourth episode of the first season. The episode is titled “Let’s Get to Scooping.”

At the end of the episode, protagonist Annalise Keating, played by Viola Davis, takes off her wig and removes all of her makeup. The idea behind the episode, Green said, actually came from Davis, who decided that if she was going to take her makeup off she wanted to take everything off, including her wig.

“When she took off that outer layer of armor that she goes to work with on a daily basis, where she took off the wig, where she took off her eyelashes … we wanted to make it so that she was taking off the outside armor so she could gear up for war in her house,” Green said.

This episode was the first time Green gasped in awe at seeing something she had written on the screen, she said.

She added that she wants to continue to tell stories that make people react and encourage more diversity in the hiring of writers and actors.

“I want to be able to add to the conversation and make people go, ‘damn, yeah, she did that,’” Green said.

Published on February 28, 2016 at 10:01 pm

Contact Stacy: sfern100@syr.edu | @StacyFernandezB