WRITING
Jen is the proud author of Confessions of a Casting Director, published by HarperCollins. She has also written op-eds, personal essays for USA Today and Newsweek, and short stories for The Jewish Literary Journal. She publishes essays on animation and running on Substack. She earned an MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU and received an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation grant for her TV script Lucy in the Sky, a short film starring Whoopi Goldberg. She is a two-time recipient of the Will and Jada Smith Family Foundation Award and has twice won the Fusion Film Festival TV writing award.
SCREENPLAYS
LUCY IN THE SKY (SHORT)
A teen girl with autism has her past and present unravel when she and her twin sister become part of a genetic study that could forever change Lucy.
Film Festivals include:
2019 Catalina Film Festival
2019 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival
2019 Indy Shorts International Film Festival
2019 Lighthouse International Film Festival
2019 Asian American International Film Festival
2019 Newport Beach Film Festival
2019 Vero Beach Wine and Film Festival
2019 Annapolis Film Festival
2019 Sedona International Film Festival
2018 San Francisco Independent Film Festival
TELEVISION
LUCY IN THE SKY (HALF-HOUR PILOT)
A teen girl with autism has her past and present unravel when she and her twin sister become part of a genetic study that could forever change Lucy.
2016 Sloan Foundation Writing Award
2017 Will and Jada Smith Family Foundation Award
2017 NYU Fusion Film Festival best graduate 1/2 hour pilot
STARRING CHLOE FISHER (HALF-HOUR PILOT)
A gritty half-hour comedy set in the cutthroat world of teenage actors and their backstabbing parents, vying for stardom as they navigate the audition rooms in New York City.
2016 Will and Jada Smith Family Foundation Award
2016 NYU Fusion Film Festival, best graduate 1/2 hour pilot
LIT (HALF-HOUR PILOT)
Molly and Eve are identical twin sisters. One sister wakes up with a terrible hangover on 9/11. She's the lucky one.
2019 Finalist, NYU Fusion Film Festival, best graduate 1/2 hour pilot.
2018 NYU Episodic Lab Participant
HEARTLAND (HALF-HOUR PILOT)
When sixteen-year-old amateur video game developer Amanda is diagnosed with a rare heart condition, she attends a heart support group for women, “borrowing” the women’s voices and likenesses to create a Virtual Reality video game. But when the demo for her game is stolen and goes viral, the exposed women are enraged. Suddenly Amanda has a lot more to repair than her broken heart.
UNDERCOVER STAGE MOTHER (HALF-HOUR PILOT)
When a former child actress turned talent agent gets fired from her job, she goes undercover as a stage mother taking former clients to auditions, terrorizing other child actors in the waiting room.
BINGE (HALF-HOUR PILOT)
Three teens from different backgrounds band together to heal at a weekly support group for eating disorders.
KNOX AND FURR (HALF-HOUR ANIMATED PILOT)
A pampered Persian cat and her black lab brother are suddenly faced with running a holistic pet care clinic when their owner mysteriously passes away.
WITCHES AND BITCHES (HALF-HOUR ANIMATED PILOT)
A high-powered entertainment lawyer uses black magic to prosper in the evil world of entertainment and parent modern kids.
ORIGINAL PLAYS
BEAUTIFUL PASADENA
In 2008, a couple sinks thousands of dollars into a remodel for their historic apartment in Pasadena just as the economy and their marriage collapse.
2023 Available for licensing here
2019 Off-Broadway production, SheNYC Arts, New York, NY
2019 Reading, Ensemble Studio Theater, New York, NY
MY GODDAMN BAT MITZVAH
Smart and spirited Maddie Stone’s world comes undone when her parents announce their divorce three weeks before her bat mitzvah.
THE RUNNING RABBI
Sam’s triple bypass surgery gets upstaged when his dysfunctional family unravels in the ICU.
FREEWAY (10-MINUTE PLAY)
When a young couple's inner voices warn them not to walk down the aisle, they must decide if they should listen and cancel the wedding, or keep driving down the freeway toward marriage.
EATING SKELETONS (ONE-ACT PLAY)
A young actress takes herself on a humorous journey to accept her body image and follow her dreams.
BLINDFOLDED APPARITIONS (ONE-ACT PLAY)
When a Jewish graduate student arrives in Prague fifty years after World War 2, she closes her eyes and wakes up a prisoner back in the Terezin ghetto.