Did Star Trek: Picard get new writers for Season 2?

Based on the per-episode crew credits found on IMDB: yes, season two has new writers.

Creators

Every episode of season one and two credits Akiva Goldsman, Michael Chabon, Kirsten Beyer, and Alex Kurtzman as the creators of the show.

Season One Writers

During season one, Michael Chabon is the primary writer, with occasional contributions from the other creators as well as a few others.

In addition, Nick Zayas serves as the executive story editor for every episode, and also the writer for episode six.

Season Two Writers

For season two, it appears that the writing duties were mostly handed off to a group of staff writers including Chris Derrick, Juliana James, and Kiley Rossetter. None of these individuals had any credits for season one. Five other writers who were not credited for season one contribute to a handful of episodes, and some of the creators have writing credits on an episode or two as well.

The story editor also changed, with Matt Okumura taking over for Nick Zayas. Nick Zayas is not credited at all in season two.

Visual Summary

Here is a table I made, with all the credits for each episode, color-coded by credited role(s):

You can clearly see that an almost entirely different group of people is credited with writing season two.

While he also seems to have about three co-writing credits on the second season (2.01, 2.02, 2.10), one major change from season one to season two was Showrunner Michael Chabon being replaced by Terry Matalas. However, Michael Chabon still serves the series as an executive producer.

In this interview over at TrekMovie.com, Matalas talks about these changes, as he explains that Picard is really a 3-Part Story with very distinct chapters all meant to deconstruct Picard in unique ways.

The episode felt quite a bit different than season one with a lighter tone, and faster pace. Would you say this is indicative of season two as a whole?

I’m answering these questions as we’re literally just days away from the completion of season three, the gigantic high-stakes finale, so I have the benefit of some future perspective here… I think the tremendous thing about the three-part story of Picard is that each chapter, each season, feels incredibly distinct. Visually, tonally, narratively, thematically. They’re each deeply emotional pieces of character-driven sci-fi, but they’re also exploring very different things, asking different questions. I think Season 2 is similar to Season 1 as it deconstructs Picard in ways we’ve never explored before. So, for all the genre popcorn, there’s also a lot of psychology and–dare I say–romance.

As an aside: I would also like to point out that Terry Matalas was the creator and Showrunner for the TV series adaptation of 12 Monkeys and that IMO the lighter tone, the romance angle, the execution of certain plots, the fact that this is also a time travel story, and the lucky happenstance of being able to snag actor James Callis for a similar mythos-important kind of role feels rather 12 Monkey's-esque.