Hi, my name is Vanessa.  I like long walks on the beach and… wait, this isn’t that kind of 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 personal mantra is “this too shall pass” and my work mantra is “nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

I grew up in New Jersey, Ohio, Connecticut, and the San Francisco Bay Area. I have a dual-degree in English and Italian from the University of California, Santa Barbara, where I fell in love with my husband Matt and regrettably never wore sunscreen once in 4 years (these things catch up with you in your forties). After undergrad, I headed to Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago, from which I graduated cum laude in 2006. I spent the next few years working for firms in Chicago and generally DINK-ing it up with Matt before having our first daughter. We moved to Los Angeles in 2010 to get away from the snow and be close to my parents.

I took my first in-house job and never looked back to firm life until 2015 when I left my cushy in-house role to jump off a cliff and start my own law practice. For about 7 years I grew my business and tripled-down on the mom thing by having two more kids. These little monsters (now 7, 9 & 16!) fill our home with noise and our hearts with love.

I closed my private practice in 2022 and I’m currently in an in-house role. Prior to March 2023 the extent of my creative writing experience was a short story for a detective fiction course in college in which a small-town sheriff investigating a kidnapping turns out to be… the kidnapper! When The Killer Inside Me came out almost 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 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 crocheting.  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.  Thanks for coming to my site and learning more about me.