Jessie Keyt

Jessie Keyt is a film scholar, writer and consultant for writers, filmmakers, and production companies in the US, UK, Europe, and India. She co-authored Alternative Scriptwriting: Contemporary Storytelling for the Screen, and co-wrote the award-winning feature film, SKIN, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. Her screenwriting has received development support and/or recognition from Euroscript/MEDIA II, the Sundance Screenwriters’ Lab, the International Writers' Lab, the Chesterfield/Writers’ Film Project, the Nicholl Fellowship, and the Austin Film Festival. Her plays have been produced at the Cherry Lane Theater and Manhattan Theater Source. Her nonfiction and fiction have been published widely and awarded a Byrdcliffe residency, a Vermont Studio Center Fellowship, and a Columbia Writing Program Fellowship. Jessie holds an MFA in Writing from Columbia’s School of the Arts, and an MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. She is Head of Screenwriting and an Associate Arts Professor in the Department of Dramatic Writing at NYU and has taught screenwriting at Columbia University, Sundance, and La Fémis. She also mentors filmmakers for the Venice Biennale College Cinema, Torino Film Lab, and the Cine Qua Non Film Lab. Her research interests include climate-change storytelling and alternative scriptwriting, and her creative work explores alienation, loss, nature, motherhood, and the American myth.