Jenna Avery was indoctrinated into the cult of sci-fi at an early age by her dad, who handed her a copy of Arthur C. Clarke’s The City and the Stars and said, “You might like this one.” Star Wars followed shortly thereafter and swept her away into otherworldly fantasy and speculative fiction for good. 

As an elementary school student, she even pitched a local TV station about adapting a dragon novel she was particularly fond of. That same book series led her to being branded “the coolest mom in the class” when she told her kiddo’s then first-grade classmates her favorite books either had spaceships, dragons, or ideally, both.

Though she’d wanted to be a writer from a young age — and even co-authored a “soap opera” book with a teenage friend about romances among their classmates — it wasn’t until post-graduate school and an entirely different career in urban design when a colleague said, “Hey, you should write a screenplay,” when Jenna finally dug into scriptwriting. Since then, she’s pursued screenwriting with a fierce passion, studying with Terrel Seltzer, ScreenwritingU, Chris Soth, Corey Mandell, Steven Pressfield, and Jeff Howard. 

In addition to writing original sci-fi scripts and short stories, Jenna’s been hired for a paid writing assignment for a post-apocalyptic coming of age story and as a consultant for a spec sci-fi TV series, developed a treatment for a supernatural thriller, and rewrote a sci-fi drama for co-writing credit. Jenna also writes a regular column for Script Magazine. 

Her most recent script, VISITATION, is a sci-fi family drama which contemplates loss, acceptance, and community, and is very much an ode to her father, who passed away far too soon, in its genre, scope, and location. The script is set in the same high mountain valley her father took their family every summer, and where Jenna will take his ashes this June 2026. 

Currently, Jenna lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her incredibly supportive husband, two fantastic kiddos, and way too many kitties (plus occasional foster kittens).