Speaker Steven Canals

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Steven Canals

Co-Creator and Executive Producer, Pose (FX)

STEVEN CANALS is the Emmy-nominated and Peabody Award-winning co-creator, showrunner, executive producer, director and writer of FX’s groundbreaking drama series, Pose, which just ended its third and final season to universal raves. He directed and co-wrote the series finale, which brought the series to a heartbreaking and hopeful conclusion.

A groundbreaking queer, Afro Latinx creator, Steven wrote the original pilot of Pose while in graduate school, and from those beginnings the series has transformed the landscape of television forever, bringing trans and queer representation to the forefront of the national conversation and paving the way for a more inclusive industry and culture.  

Steven currently has an overall deal with 20th Century TV.  Under his Story Ave. Productions production banner, he is developing a variety of new projects that represent diverse and inclusive voices and stories, including: the FX limited series, 81 Words, which chronicles the real-life gay rights activists who in the 1970s conspired with a clandestine group of closeted psychiatrists to challenge the American Psychiatric Association’s definition of homosexuality; and an ABC drama series, In The End, which follows Kiona Brown, an end-of-life doula who, through her work, discovers the secret to a new beginning is to embrace what happens in the end.  

For his work on Pose, he is the recipient of the Peabody Award, a GLAAD Media Award, and an AFI Award, as well as an Emmy, Golden Globe, Critics Critic and WGA Award nominee. He is also the winner of the 2020 Final Draft Awards' 'New Voice Award for TV', and The Point Foundation’s Horizon Award, which recognizes a trailblazer who has taken a leadership role as an advocate of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) community. 


Speaking on: TV for good: using the power of content to shift humanity

At the Banff Media Festival, we met with Netflix and took a ride up Sulphur Mountain on the gondola. That’s where we made the pitch.
- Naveen Prasad, EVP and GM, Elevation Pictures

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