Jessie Keyt

JESSIE KEYT is an award-winning writer and consultant for writers, filmmakers, and production companies in the US, Europe, and India. Clients have included Working Title, Nickelodeon, 9 Story Media, Alicia Keys, Cine Qua Non Film Lab, and Film Independent/Netflix (Amplifier Fellowship). Her book Alternative Scriptwriting: Contemporary Storytelling for the Screen was published in 2023, and her award-winning feature film, SKIN, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and received worldwide theatrical release. Her screenwriting has received development support and/or recognition from Euroscipt/MEDIA II, the Sundance Screenwriters’ Lab, the Chesterfield/Writers’ Film Project, the Nicholl Fellowship, and the Austin Film Festival. Her plays have been produced at the Cherry Lane Theater in New York City 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 the Area 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, the French national film school. Her research interests include climate-change storytelling, alternative scriptwriting, and artist-built environments, and her creative work frequently explores alienation, loss, nature, motherhood, and myth, often against the backdrop of an America that never actually existed.