Making Art, Kicking A**, Taking Names

Hi, my name is Vanessa.  I like long walks on the beach and… wait, this isn’t that kindof website.  Let me start over.

Hi, my name is Vanessa.  I like creative problem-solving and well-drafted legal documents. I wear my heart on my sleeve and I like to laugh. My mantras are “this too shall pass” and “nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

Growing up, I wanted to be a basketball player and a doctor (like Dr. J, as I used to say), then an actress, then a musician. Instead, I went to law school to be a public defender, came out a commercial real estate associate, spent the past decade in privacy and consumer protection and now find myself vying for a career in filmmaking. Life is funny like that, but there is a synergy to it all.

Being a good lawyer is all about seeing different stories in your head and helping your client get to the best one. Both counseling and storytelling involve filtering through massive amounts of info to create something concise, cohesive and actionable.

When I first started writing, I couldn’t believe I’d “wasted” twenty years on the law. But now, a few years in, I’ve realized how much those years fuel my creativity. I’ve done so many interesting things and met so many interesting people. I’ve lived a life and have no shortage of stories waiting to be told. None of those things were true in my twenties so I’ve stopped kicking myself over the whole thing.

Prior to March 2023 the extent of my creative writing endeavors was a short story for a detective fiction course in college. In that gripping tale, a small-town sheriff investigating a kidnapping turns out to be… the kidnapper! When The Killer Inside Me came out a decade later I was like “Dang!” but it still didn’t occur to me that I might have some stories to tell until I was 42.

The midlife crisis hit me hard but instead of cheating on my husband or joining a cult, I took up screenwriting. It’s all I talk about and sometimes I wonder if Matt would prefer that I had cheated on him or joined a cult.

I recently quit my legal gig to pursue screenwriting and filmmaking full-time (yup, you read that right!).

I do my best to balance the demands of my passion for writing with that of my family, friends, my volunteer role with the Hermosa Beach Youth Basketball League, the guitar, and crochet.  I can’t say I’m very good at any of these things but I love them all. It’s a work in progress but life is all about the journey… the journey and good pizza (shoutout to Redwood Pie in Hermosa Beach!).

Oh, and I really do like long walks on the beach.

Bar Admissions

-Illinois, 2006 (inactive)

-California, 2011 (active)

Education

-J.D., Northwestern University School of Law, 2006, cum laude

-B.A., Italian & English, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2003, High Honors & Phi Beta Kappa