Robin Swicord is primarily known for her work as a screenwriter for Memoirs Of A Geisha (Satellite Award for best screenplay); Little Women, (co-producer, Writers Guild award nomination); Matilda (co-written and co-produced with Nicholas Kazan); the cult comedy Shag (shared); The Perez Family; and Practical Magic (shared, co-produced). She has written two plays that were produced off-Broadway (Last Days at the Dixie Girl Café, Criminal Minds, both published by Samuel French).
In 2009 Swicord received an Oscar nomination for her contribution to The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, a project Swicord originated and worked on for more than a decade.
Swicord made her feature directing debut with Sony Pictures Classics’ The Jane Austen Book Club, produced by Julie Lynn and John Calley, adaptation written by Swicord. She then wrote and directed the feature film Wakefield, an adaptation of E.L. Doctorow’s short story starring Bryan Cranston and Jennifer Garner which premiered at Telluride September 2016. Swicord co-Executive Produced and wrote episodes of Ava DuVernay’s Netflix Emmy Award-nominated mini-series When They See Us, now streaming on Netflix. Currently, Swicord has written an independently-financed feature to direct Welcome To The Tempest Hotel, a romantic comedy set in Bermuda, during the impending crisis of climate change. For Warner Brothers, she is also at work on a six-part limited series about Mark Twain and his incomparable wife, the heiress Livy Langdon Clemens; based on Richard Zack’s non-fiction Chasing The Last Laugh; produced by Rob Reiner and Michele Reiner, to star William Macy.
For seven years, Swicord was a Governor for the Writers Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, and chaired the prestigious Nicholl Fellowship. She mentors for the Sundance Screenwriting lab and Tribeca Film Festival, and often co-leads Film Independent’s Writers Lab. In 2015 she helped create and launch the inaugural Hedgebrook Screenwriting Workshop for women writers. Swicord is married to screenwriter Nicholas Kazan; they have two daughters, actor-writer Zoe Kazan and actor-writer Maya Kazan.
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