By Sara Lynne Wright

MARK GOFFMAN KSG '94 is the showrunner of hit series Sleepy Hollow, in addition to being a producer and writer on White Collar, The West Wing, and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

Q. How did the SLEEPY HOLLOW writers approach the first season, when you were still getting to know each other?

A. In the writers room, you get to know each other very quickly. We had a mini retreat and worked backwards from the finale. We spent a lot of time talking about elements in the pilot, the characters, our history, and an overarching theme for the season. We asked ourselves: What is the wildest way we can end this season? How can we leave each of our characters near-impossibly perched on a figurative cliff?

Mark Goffman KSG '94 (Writer, Director, & Producer, LAW AND ORDER: SVU, SLEEP HOLLOW)

By Dominique Kalil '00

I have an addiction to interesting people. In trying to understand this addiction, I have thought long and hard about what makes someone or something interesting. I have come to realize that what merits the term “interesting” is not so much the initial impact of someone’s story, but the sustainability of that impact. Part of my own intrigue is the all important captivation necessary to keep my ADD-inclined mind from straying. Television audiences are like that too. Like me, they are temperamental, easily distracted and wish to be pleasantly entertained with an exquisite but almost impossible balance of rational predictability and surprising spontaneity. Sometimes the strategy employed by successful writers to maintain this balance must be acutely calculated; at other times the process is probably rampantly impetuous. Either way, television writing involves remarkable skill and perspective—both of which Mark Goffman has in abundance.