Jim Burnstein spent Thursday, November 16, and Friday, November 17, 2017, in Columbus, Ohio, as a Guest Artist in the Leventhal Artists Program, affiliated with the Jewish Film Festival. On Thursday afternoon, Burnstein taught a screenwriting seminar for forty film students at the Fort Hayes Arts and Academic High School and Career Center, a magnet school that attracts students from across Metropolitan Columbus. NBC4 (the local NBC affiliate) covered the event. Later that night, he spoke to an audience at the Columbus Jewish Center about American Jewish contributions to the film industry prior to the screening of the documentary, Harold and Lillian. Burnstein introduced the film and conducted the Q&A following the screening. At the dinner before the screening, he spoke about his own work to the patrons of the Leventhal Artists Program.

On Friday morning, Burnstein spoke to screenwriting and television writing students at Ohio State University (attended by members of the OSU screenwriting and film studies program). At the end of his presentation, he showed the OSU students The V Card (a 423 film that showcases the Michigan campus and premiered at the Traverse City Film Festival in 2012). The response from the OSU students was extremely positive. and they were full of questions as to how we manage to do such things at Michigan. Burnstein reflects, "[The OSU students']  appreciation of our screenwriting and production programs was surprising and a little bit overwhelming. It made me appreciate how lucky we are to have a unified program rather than one that is split over several departments." On Friday evening, Burnstein held a Pitch Session at the McConnell Arts Center that was preceded by a “Happy Hour”.