Emily Schleiger is a Chicago area* screenwriter/writer.  She’s a Louisville native who has moved frequently around the Midwest/-adjacent area, never far from a cornfield. From her mother she learned a morbid and self-deprecating sense of humor, and from her father… an understanding of toxic masculinity**.

She writes character-driven dark comedy and dramedy that explores grief, anger, pain, family dysfunction, the fear of being trapped, and bad dads (she’ll discuss why over drinks**). She uses humor to explore how patriarchal norms and expectations are often silly or detrimental to us all. She loves awkward and unlikely heroes who discover their power is truly needed in the world. If the mood is too light, she’ll bring the heavy/real shit and still make you laugh.*** Fine, she’ll cry with you too.

She earned her screenwriting MFA at University of California Riverside-Palm Desert. Previously she studied writing and improv at The Second City and elsewhere, yet she still sucks at improv. She had a mercifully short career in human resources before becoming the mom of two wonderful humans.

Her dark comedy feature screenplay LOUDMOUSE was a 2024 Slamdance Screenplay Quarterfinalist, scored in the top 15% of the 2021 and 2023 Nicholl Fellowships, was a 2021 and 2022 Athena Screenwriters Labs Finalist, and a 2022 Austin Film Festival Second Rounder. Her dark comedy TV pilot LOLA’S NOT ALONE was an official selection of the 2025 Broad Humor Film Festival and an excerpt was read live by actors.

Her satire/humor has been published on McSweeney’s, Reductress, The Second City Network, and more. She's also performed at storytelling shows and readings, including Mortified. 

Since 2023 she has worked as a freelance screenwriter for Voyage Media, working with producers to adapt intellectual property into marketable screenplays.

If she has gone missing, please check anywhere hot buttered popcorn is sold****, or maybe start asking that aggressive-looking clown some hard questions.

*(for now?) HELP

**One of his fave movies was THE GREAT SANTINI.

***One time, on the way with fellow Brownies to go see THE CARE BEARS MOVIE, she was reprimanded by the troop leader for detailing too much about the book Helter Skelter in the backseat of the troop leader’s Buick. It was awkward, but she likes to think she shared with her classmates a healthy dose of reality that day. Life isn’t always Helter Skelter, but it isn’t always CARE BEARS either.

****Emily mocks cornfields, yet loves popcorn. People are complicated.