Meet Writer Meg Indurti

Rickshaw Cycle 3 Writer’s Room Alumna Meg Indurti is a first-generation South Asian stand up comedian and writer who got her start in Chicago and is currently based in LA. She is a humor writer for The New Yorker and Reductress and a headline contributor for The Onion.

Meg recently was a writer’s assistant on the new Riz Ahmed Amazon Prime show Bait. The show is a comedy about Shah Latif, a struggling actor in the UK, who is auditioning to be the next James Bond.

Shortly after the show’s premiere, Rickshaw brought community together to watch the first episode and hear from Meg about her experience as a writer for film and tv. She shared the below and more.

About watching “Bait” with community

It’s really cool to see something that you had so many discussions about like every single line, every single character and scene. And to watch the final piece and then watch other people like it and react to it, it’s amazing.

How did you get your start?

I started doing stand up in Chicago at open mics. I loved writing jokes and playing with different types of characters I could play on stage. My first love was always writing. I grew up watching things like Community, Arrested Development, 30 Rock and lots of Telugu movies with my dad, which were always quick and filled with insane jokes. When the pandemic shut stand-up down, I spent more time crafting scripts and characters that led me to write things for The New Yorker and later television.

What’s a writer’s assistant?

The job of the writer’s assistant is, in general, to take notes about every single thing that’s going on and then send the summary of what happened in the room that day. You need to be organized. Some days you look at certain topics and research as to what’s happening in other shows and how does the internet feel about it, how does history feel about it. Other days you’re doing story meets, so then you’re also writing the script sometimes along with the room. And then also, if you can get in a word in between all this, you’re also pitching jokes and pitching character things and saying your opinions.

The best way to learn how to do anything is to watch others more skilled than you do it. I learned a lot from the showrunners and other writers in the room in the way they pitched, crafted, and argued for ideas and jokes.

What kinds of South Asian stories or characters do you want to see?

I want more weird and flawed and straight up funny characters. Those are the people in my family and life and I want to see those on the screen — anti-heroes, sluts, gossipers, jokesters, mothers with kooky ambitions — just working-class people trying to live and love in community.

How can other writers pursue writing assistant jobs? Where do people find or learn of open positions?

This is a great question that I do not have an answer to. To be frank, the only way is to be out and about, to watch and read lots of things, and when something resonates, ask the people who had a part in making it to coffee, pick their brain, write and produce your own things for the public, hope one of those things resonate with others and that you’ll be invited to pitch in on their projects.

Follow Meg on IG here: https://www.instagram.com/megindurti

Check out her website here: https://www.megindurti.com/