In June 2012—after eight years as founder and CEO of A Touch of Grace Hospice, and in the same month and year the Supreme Court upheld President Obama’s Affordable Care Act—Jennifer Irons left healthcare to pursue her screenwriting dream. Growing up poor in Chicago, Irons remembers, “You heard the term ‘starving artist’, and I didn’t want to be a starving artist.” So she shelved her passion and got a Masters in Social Work and a PhD in Sociology, telling herself, “I’ll just write as a hobby.”

But she couldn’t stick to that plan.

“[A]ll the while I was writing,” Iron says of the years between 2004 and 2012 when she ran A Touch of Grace, living between the flagship hospice in Chicago and the second one she opened in Nashville, Tennessee in 2009. “This passion would not die,” Irons explained over the phone, speaking from Los Angeles where she is now based.

Today, she is the CEO of Manasseh and Ephraim Studios, the banner under which she has written and produced the short Shame, about a man suffering domestic violence, and the pilot for upcoming web series Choysez, which follows a working class teenager navigating life in Los Angeles.

She told us how she’s leveraging her passion and entrepreneurial acumen to introduce edifying content specifically aimed at women and viewers of color.

MadameNoire: How did you make the transition from healthcare to film and television?

Jennifer Irons: I started taking creative writing courses and other courses on writing, and then I actually decided to apply to film school… Even though it’s two totally different industries, the business sense of it, I have.

The hospice that we opened… was focused on serving underserved families [that] were largely African-American and Latino. So me looking at what areas are missing in a particular industry is what I’m accustomed to.

MN: What did you find missing in the film and television industry?

JI: …After I went to film school, I learned that as writers, what happens is you write a great script, they cut you a check. And if you’re a great writer, you might get a little bit of money on the back-end. But then after that, it’s no longer yours.

You get credit for it, but then the whole process of making sure that the script ends up being what you envisioned, and that you retain creative control, and that you tell the story the way you want to tell it only happens when you’re actually in a position to produce them. So it was that that made me decide that I wanna do more than just write. I wanna maintain control over my own products and projects.

MN: What does you average production budget look like?

JI: [O]ur first budget production was about $11,000…[for] a 10-minute short. We’re currently producing a pilot episode for YouTube TV…and the pilot budget is about $10,000.

MN: How do you fund your projects?

JI: Everything is funded out-of-pocket. …I made money from the sale of my first company. But with this new project that we’re working on—Choysez—we are going to do crowdfunding for it, to help produce the remaining first season.

MN: What’s your long-term plan for sustainability?

JI: [I wrote] a one-hour legal drama that I posted on The Blacklist… The reviews consistently say ‘Unique characters that have unique voices; solid and well-written pilot script.’ And I think that’s what’s gonna help put us in a position to do our first mainstream, if you will, project, and help generate revenue.

MN: Your scripts have a moral imperative. Why is that important to you?

JI: I believe there is space for us to tell well-written stories that don’t damage our viewer. And I believe because the stories are well-written, and because people are looking for that and [aren’t] satisfied with the same storyline, I think that we are actually gonna be well-received. People want it, we just have to give it to them.

Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond is the author of Powder Necklace. Named among the 39 most promising African writers under 39, her work will be featured in the forthcoming anthology Africa39.