Sheila Curran Bernard is an Emmy and Peabody Award-winning writer, filmmaker, and consultant with expertise in using the tools of story and structure to enhance the power, rigor, and appeal of nonfiction media. She has played a leading role in creating and overseeing projects for national and international broadcast, theatrical release, and museum and classroom use -- work that is often strategically leveraged to enhance impact through the simultaneous development of components for the web, teacher development, and community-based public engagement.

Bernard’s theatrical and broadcast credits include nearly 50 hours of programming carried nationally on public television, including the series Eyes on the Prize and School: The Story of American Public Education, for which she also co-wrote the companion book (Beacon Press 2001). Additional broadcast credits include films for HBO and Lifetime.  Her theatrical documentary credits include the IMAX film Wired to Win: Surviving the Tour de France, a film about neuroscience that's now in international release. She recently wrote the script for an IMAX film about genetics, now in development. She is also an experienced proposal writer and consultant.

Bernard is the author of Documentary Storytelling (Focal Press/Elsevier). First published in 2003, the second edition (2007) has been translated into Portuguese, Korean, and Chinese, and the third edition will be published in September 2010. 

With Kenn Rabin, Bernard is also the author of Archival Storytelling: A Filmmaker's Guide to Finding, Using, and Licensing Third-Party Visuals and Music (Focal Press/Elsevier 2008), a look at the ways in which fiction and nonfiction filmmakers can access and use copyrighted materials. ("Remarkably thorough, profoundly practical, lucidly written, and thought provoking" -- SPRING/SUMMER 2010, American Archivist, pp. 278-81)

Recognition for Bernard’s work includes a national Emmy Award for writing, the George Foster Peabody Award, the Cine Golden Eagle, and the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award. She has also been honored with fellowships at the MacDowell Colony for the Arts and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Staged readings of her plays and screenplays have been held in New York City and in Portland, Maine, and she has been a finalist in competitions including the Nantucket Film Festival Screenwriting Competition, the New Plays in America Festival, the Sundance Filmmakers Lab, and the Lamia Ink! competition.

Bernard has discussed ethical documentary storytelling on behalf of the Jean Everitt Journalism Lecture Series at Christopher Newport University, the Niemann Conference on Narrative Journalism at Harvard University, the International Wedding and Events Videographers Association annual meeting, the Pennsylvania College of Technology, the University of Bergen, and elsewhere. She has taught at Princeton University and Westbrook College, and is currently on the faculty of the University at Albany, State University of New York. She holds B.S. in Communication from Boston University and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Goddard College.