Writing
Hi, I’m Jess and I tell stories.
On this page, you’ll learn about the stories I tell. To learn about the stories I can help you or your team tell, please check out my Services section. From my work as an arts education advocate to my efforts to support working artists, I have spent most of my career advocating for every person’s right to think and create like an artist. This page is where I show up for my own creativity.
Television
I have written three original thirty-minute pilots.
“Bjorn for Murder” is the story of a washed-up Swedish detective who lands in fictional Rufford, VT, to catch the serial killer who got away. He ends up helping a local female cop solve the town’s first murder in thirty years, and may stay around for a while to solve a suspicious spate of accidental deaths. Imagine if Kurt Wallander landed in Schitt’s Creek, and you’re on the right track. 2023 Austin Film Festival, Second Round Placement, Comedy Teleplay Pilot Contest; 2023 Austin Film Festival, PitchFest Second Place.
“We All Scream” is the story of a failed law student who returns home to the family ice cream truck business, at war with a rival company. It’s a comedy about the oddballs who scoop, and how ice cream might ease grief but only love can heal it. Imagine if Arrested Development centered a disgraced female power player like Molly Wells from Loot (minus the billions of dollars). 2023 Big Break Screenwriting competition, Quarter-finalist, Half-hour Pilot Contest; 2023 Stage 32, Quarter-finalist, TV Comedy Screenwriting Contest.
“All of Me” Charlie Cole is the ultra-competent workaholic executive director of struggling nonprofit Art Saves Lives. Her first day on the job, she is blindsided by a financial crisis and determines to do what she does best – grit her teeth and solve the damn problem herself. But, she’s stopped by something she can’t outrun – her own body. Oh, and there are pubic hairs in the toy bin at home, her son won’t stop wearing a zebra costume to preschool, and her husband just wants to play Legos and eat snacks. What do you do when your job and your personal life demand all of you? (Possibly very auto-biographical)
Theater
My twelve-minute original musical, “Ingenue!”, won PianoFight’s 2015 ShortLived Play Competition, at the time the largest audience-judged play competition in the world. It featured seven women, all ingenues – because why should one woman have all the musical theater fun?
My solo show, “Eat the Mama”, chronicles my slow mental unraveling as the new mother of a child who couldn’t breastfeed. I was pumping seven times a day, roughly twenty hours a week, the equivalent of a part-time unpaid job. And I thought I was FINE. I wasn’t. Here’s what happened when I found out I’m not the mother I thought I would be and had to accept the mother I actually am. Check out a live video capture of a performance of “Eat the Mama” and read some nice things the San Francisco Chronicle said about the show.
Sketch Comedy
As a founding member of Chardonnay, a female-driven sketch comedy group in San Francisco, I co-produced and co-wrote twenty shows in ten years. I also performed my own work, from a polar bear hosting a children’s show as the Arctic Circle melts around her to an HR officer who uses staff orientation to showcase her heartbreak-themed performance art.
More writing on the Blog
On Being an Easy Grader
My mom is an easy grader. She started as an early childhood educator with a pedagogy that centered kindness. About twenty years ago, she began teaching at the college level, preparing prospective teachers for a career working with young children. Every year, she would...
Jessica’s “official” Bio:
Jessica never thought she would end up in philanthropy. She thought she would be a policymaker, actress, or a writer. Turns out, she is and has been all of these things. Today, she is a writer, performer, grantmaker, and educator. She has also been a union organizer, journalist, ice cream truck driver, and youth worker. Jessica has a B.A. in Anthropology and French from Smith College and an M.Ed. in Education Policy and Management from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. After serving as executive director of Performing Arts Workshop, an arts education organization in San Francisco, she was a Program Officer in the Performing Arts at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Her areas of expertise include grantmaking, arts education, storytelling, and policy and advocacy.