Jessie Keyt

Writer

New York, New York, United States

Jessie Keyt is a writer and consultant for writers, filmmakers, and production companies in the US, UK, Europe, and India. Clients have included Working Title, Nickelodeon, 9 Story Media, Alicia Keys, Cine Qua Non Film Lab, and Amplifier Fellowship (Film Independent/Netflix). 

Her book Alternative Scriptwriting: Contemporary Storytelling for the Screen was published in 2023. Her screenwriting has been recognized by Euroscipt/MEDIA II, the Sundance Screenwriters’ Lab, the Chesterfield/Writers’ Film Project (Paramount), the Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting, and the Austin Film Festival Screenplay Competition, and her award-winning feature film, SKIN, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2008 and received worldwide theatrical release the following year. Her plays have been produced at the Cherry Lane Theater in New York City and Manhattan Theater Source. Her nonfiction and fiction has been published widely and awarded a Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference 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 Assistant Arts Professor at NYU and has taught screenwriting at Columbia University, Sundance Collab, and La Femis, the French national film school in Paris. Her research interests include alternative scriptwriting, climate-change storytelling, and artist-built environments.