Writers for new 'Avatar' show, 'Seven Havens', hail from Midwest

article Seven Havens Executive Producer Sehaj Sethi (right) and Story Editor Chad Quandt (left) background courtesy of Paramount+ (Paramount+) The Brief "Avatar: Seven Havens" Executive Producer Sehaj Sethi and Story Editor Chad Quandt both come from the Midwest and now work on the new animated series.Sethi comes from the greater Chicago area, but now resides in St. Paul, Minnesota, while Quandt hails from South Bend, Indiana."Avatar: Seven Havens" is a spin-off series from the critically-acclaimed "Avatar: The Last Airbender." Its season finale airs on Paramount+ Friday. ST. PAUL, Minn. - "Avatar: Seven Havens" Executive Producer Sehaj Sethi, as well as Story Editor, Chad Quandt, spoke to Fox Television Stations about their experiences as Midwesterners working on this new animated project.  About ‘Avatar: Seven Havens’ What we know: According to Paramount+, which airs the series, "Seven Havens" is about "a young Earthbender [who] discovers she's the new Avatar after Korra – but in this dangerous era, that title marks her as humanity's destroyer, not its savior. Hunted by both human and spirit enemies, she and her long-lost twin must uncover their mysterious origins and save the Seven Havens before civilization’s last strongholds collapse."  The series comes following the original, "Avatar: The Last Airbender," which aired in 2005, starting the franchise, and its predecessor, "The Legend of Korra," which aired in 2012. Both series follow their protagonist, who is the "avatar," a chosen one within the franchise who has a special spiritual connection and the ability to manipulate four elements, instead of just one.  In "Seven Havens," we follow a third avatar, a 9-year-old girl named Pavi. The series is presented as more of a mystery than its predecessors and takes place 200 years after the previous one. At the beginning of "Seven Havens," we discover that for the first time in the universe's history, there seems to be a second avatar, Pavi's long-lost twin, Nisha.  Many questions surround the series, most notably: how are there two avatars, what caused the great cataclysm that destroyed the world, and how did these new havens form? The show began releasing episodes on Oct. 9, 2026, with a batch of three new episodes being dropped each week on Fridays. The season finale is set to air Friday, Oct. 30, and has been renewed for three additional seasons. Sehaj Sethi now calls MN home Avatar: Seven Havens Executive Producer Sehaj Sethi Local perspective: Sehaj Sethi is the executive producer, alongside franchise creators, Michael Dante DiMartino and Brayn Konietzko, for "Avatar: Seven Havens." She is also a co-lead writer on the series along with Ethan Spaulding. Sethi also developed the series. She is from Evanston, Illinois, in the greater Chicago area, but she currently lives in St. Paul, Minnesota, with her husband and children. Sethi said she fell in love with the Twin Cities, completely loves Minnesota and now considers the state home.  Sethi met her now-husband while getting her graduate degree at NYU. Her husband is a Minnesota native, and after living in New York City for a while, her family decided to move to Minnesota in 2020 to be closer to both her family in the Chicago area and her husband's family in the Twin Cities area.  Sethi said the "Avatar: Seven Havens" team was very open to her working remotely, allowing her to work on the project — which began production in 2022 — mostly from Minnesota, despite most of the team being based in Los Angeles.  The team is very flexible, according to Sethi, as a storyboard artist worked from Scotland, another writer worked from New York, and co-creator Bryan Konietzko also sometimes works from his home state of Vermont.  How Sethi became executive producer The backstory: Sethi explains she was able to get the job through a team of representatives, since she's based in Minnesota, unlike most in the industry who are based in Los Angeles. Her manager saw a posting that Nickelodeon was planning a new "Avatar" series and needed assistance in leading the show.  She then went out to meet one of Nickelodeon's executives, and Sethi admits at that point she had heard of "Avatar: The Last Airbender" and "The Legend of Korra," but was yet to actually watch the show.  Cut to 72 hours later, and Sethi says she was, "Curled up on [her] couch sobbing," and thought to herself, "Oh, I need to work on this. I love this." She further explains she loved the character building, complex and empathetic storylines, and the show really spoke to her.  Thankfully for Sethi, the "Avatar" creators and producers had specifically not wanted a longtime fan to be hired as their co-executive producer. She said they needed someone who would be able to "kill the series' darlings" when writing and be loyal to this avatar's specific storyline and not necessarily the previous beloved franchise's.  Sethi said at the next meeting she stressed how badly she wanted to be a part of this new "Avatar" project. Months went by, and she worked on other roles, before finally hearing back from anyone on the "Avatar" team. It was then she met up with DiMartino and Konietzko's producing partner, and the two of them really hit it off. Afterward, she finally met DiMartino and Konietzko themselves, and the group of them "really clicked."  Developing ‘Seven Havens’ Dig deeper: Sethi said she really emphasized to the "Avatar" producers her love of complexity in storytelling, which the franchise had long echoed. "I've said a few times that I really think what matters is that there is no bad guy," Sethi explains.  "Everyone has a point of view, every character has — you know — where they're coming from. Every character has an intent that's technically good. They all technically want to do the right thing. But how they go about that really confounds things. So all of us really loved that kind of storytelling. I was like, I'm totally on board, let's do this," said Sethi, speaking further on her