NYWIFT Blog

By Lily Della Pietra

Welcome to NYWIFT, Christy Veeder!

Christy is a screenwriter, former climate scientist, and erstwhile bureaucrat whose first major work of fiction, a personal interpretation of The Dark Crystal, was written in response to not being allowed to see Jim Henson’s fantasy epic in the theater with her other third grade friends. But what Christy really loves is 30-minute comedy and the ways in which it can illuminate our hopes, defang our fears, and help us keep going in this thing called life. 

Christy’s screenplays culminate a career spanning years of editing and writing about the culinary arts, publishing academic journal articles, handing out coupons at the Port Authority while dressed as a box of cough syrup, impersonating celebrity cats on Twitter, and drafting federal legislation in the U.S. Senate – all of which have been rich preparation for the process of creating worlds on the page.

Christy discusses her diverse career background, her experience as a writer, and how she first got into the field.  

NYWIFT Member Christy Veeder

Welcome to NYWIFT! Introduce yourself briefly to our readers!

I’m a writer, working mostly on 30-minute comedy and currently preparing to start pitching my first show. Before moving into screenwriting, I worked in public policy with a focus on infrastructure, quality job creation, and climate change. Getting to contribute to those issues as part of the social justice movement and also for the U.S. government was some of the most challenging, fulfilling work I’ve ever done, and an opportunity I’ll always be grateful for.

Before policy, I worked in a range of other fields, few of which I could have ever foreseen, and all of which have been diversely enriching. It’s been a terrific journey, and there are still many chapters to go. I just recently watched Piece by Piece, the wonderfully moving Lego biopic about Pharrell Williams. As he describes in the film, looking back on life gives you the chance to “take it apart, brick by brick” and then put it back together so it makes sense.

That’s what I love about screenwriting: taking the bricks from past parts of my life and putting them together to make something totally different that can show audiences the beauty and meaning in all our lives (which can be hard to recognize when you’re running late for that meeting, delays on the 6 train, no time for coffee, those heels are giving you a blister, where’s the elevator?). 

Christy Veeder with crew

What brought you to NYWIFT?

The desire to meet people, especially women, who are making it work in this dynamic, crazy, incredibly challenging, and rewarding business. I am still in the early phases of becoming part of this profession and am psyched about every new person I get to know.

You have an incredibly diverse background in your career, from journalism and climate science to screenwriting and production. What has been the most fulfilling part of your career so far, and how has each genre shaped your work today?

Every part of the whole ride has been enriching in different ways, but doing my doctorate in climatology and atmospheric science was especially meaningful: I studied English in college and unexpectedly fell in love with earth science when I took Rocks for Jocks during my last semester.

I went on to work in food journalism and editing for six years before reaching a crossroads: I loved writing but wasn’t ready for the rollercoaster of freelancing. I also knew that if I never gave myself a chance to explore earth science, I’d always regret it. 

When I got the acceptance letter for my grad program, my whole life changed. My classes and research challenged and pushed me to levels I’d never dreamed I could achieve, and taught me that you can do pretty much anything if you love it and want it enough. The skills that I gained in research, critical thinking, and problem solving have served me ever since, but perhaps the most important lesson has been: don’t be afraid to fail. The only thing to fear is not trying. I think about this, for myself and my characters, throughout every screenplay I work on.

Christy Veeder BTS

What drew you to the field of film production and screenwriting?

Back in 2018, I was dating an actor, and as a result, watching a lot more television. I had never watched much TV before and was discovering for the first time the enormous scope of television’s power and potential for art, storytelling, and making sense of human experience. I had the germ of an idea for a comedy series, but with a full-time job keeping me busy, I didn’t get far with pursuing it. 

Fast-forward to 2023, when I realized I wanted to change my career in a substantial way. The challenge was figuring out what to try next. The actor and I were still together, and I told him I was thinking of taking a shot at writing that TV show. His (very kind and loving) response: “Well, I think that would be great to try, because that’s the only thing I’ve ever seen you get really excited about.” When someone who really knows you tells you something like that, it makes an impression. I ploughed ahead and have loved every minute of it since.

You recently wrote and produced your short, Sweet Home Sarasota, which tells the story of Lexi and her mom, Maxine. What inspired you to write it, and what do you hope viewers take away from it?

I wrote Sweet Home Sarasota as a comedy series, and my wonderful collaborators and I decided to create the short as a proof of concept to help pitch the show. Focusing on a single moment from one of the show’s later episodes, the short shows a conversation between Lexi and Maxine that gives a sense of their quirks, their more deeply simmering hopes and fears, their love for each other, and their ability to push each other’s buttons. I

It’s a snapshot of the show’s larger theme: what it’s like to figure out – maybe for the first time – who you really are, at mid-life (when you’re supposed to have it all figured out already) or late in life (when you don’t have a lot of time left). Lexi and Maxine are each rediscovering – in the most courageous way they can – what it means to be a woman, to be alive, to be a woman who feels alive.

Christy Veeder at the Sarasota Film Festival

How has your work in policy and earth science intersected with your experience in screenwriting?

When thinking about policy, you want to consider the needs of all of an issue’s stakeholders and how those stakeholders will be affected by the policy you’re crafting — not unlike how, when creating a story, you want to think about the ways in which your theme is going to impact each of your characters and how their actions will, in turn, interact with the theme. 

Similarly, my work in graduate school focused on using computer models to simulate global climate: you program the model to represent a version of the world, and then you introduce a perturbation and see what happens — not unlike creating a story. This parallel between climate modeling and literature was hugely empowering for me when I was starting graduate school and alternatingly exhilarated and terrified about what I’d gotten myself into.

It makes me laugh to realize that, in returning to writing, I’ve now come full circle.

Can you tell us more about your upcoming comedy, The Early Middle Ages, which is set in and around Constantinople circa 600 CE?

I was working in a challenging job and reading a book on medieval history to help me fall asleep at night – except instead of calming me down, it kept inspiring me with stories about the wild and crazy things that happened on a routine basis during the Early Middle Ages. The brilliant innovations that some folks were able to achieve during those centuries and the parallels between the societal challenges that people faced then and now made me think, “This should be a TV show!” 

The Early Middle Ages takes viewers on a tour of just a handful of the remarkable events and phenomena of that time period, using historical moments as the springboard for the existential and emotional journeys of our two main characters: an Italian aristocrat who’s scandalized his community and taken refuge in a monastery, and a humble country woman who’s accidentally been crowned ruler of the Roman Empire.

Connect with Christy Veeder on Instagram at @ChristyVeeder. 

(All images courtesy of Christy Veeder)