The Austin Film Festival (AFF) has announced Ronald D. Moore as the recipient of the 2024 Outstanding Television Writer Award for his prolific impact on the world of television and his work on celebrated science fiction and fantasy series such as “For All Mankind,” “Outlander” and “Battlestar Galactica.”
“I’m very honored,” Moore told Variety over the phone. “It’s great when your work is recognized and when a renowned organization like the Austin Film Festival chooses to do something like this. It’s amazing. I’m just very humbled by it all.”
Moore will receive the award at the Festival Awards Luncheon during AFF’s Writers Conference, which takes place Oct. 24-27. Two panels, “A Conversation with Ronald D. Moore” and “Script To Screen: Battlestar Galactica,” are also scheduled for the event.
“It’s a moment to stop and look around,” Moore said of his honor. “It’s always amazing when you get to the mountaintop — and you’re not always on the mountaintop — so when you get there, it’s cool to stop and take a gander, to look around and really enjoy it. I’ve been very lucky, and I’ve had an amazing run of different shows and worked with a lot of great people. Something like this reminds you to enjoy it. It’s been an amazing journey and it’s really cool.”
Popular on Variety
Moore got his break in the industry as a staff writer for “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” for which he wrote 27 episodes, including the award-winning two-hour series finale. In 1994, Moore scored his first Emmy nomination and joined the staff of “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” as a supervising producer. He was promoted to co-executive producer the following year.
In 2003, Moore re-imaged the “Battlestar Galactica” series, based on the original, which aired in the late 1970s. He would serve as showrunner and executive producer on the sci-fi drama, which aired for four seasons. During its historic run, “Battlestar Galactica” received a Peabody award and an Emmy nomination for best writing in a dramatic series and was selected as a top television program by the American Film Institute in 2005 and 2006.
Through his company Tall Ship productions, Moore is currently producing the Golden Globe-nominated series “Outlander” for Starz and “For All Mankind” on Apple TV+. Moore scored an overall deal with Disney’s 20th Television in 2020 where he is developing new series for the studio.
