Carsen Smith

Carsen Smith is a screenwriter, satirist, and former zookeeper (yes, really) from Jacksonville, FL. After growing up dirt poor as a queer kid in the deep South, she is now a dark comedy writer. Since graduating from Vanderbilt with a B.A. in Cinema & Media Arts, she’s contributed segments to truTV’s Impractical Jokers, headlines for Reductress, sketches for the Upright Citizens Brigade, and was a participant in The Onion’s 2023 Satire Workshop.

Her award-winning scripts feature women and queer characters trapped in nightmarish situations, which surely has nothing to do with her own upbringing. Now pursuing her Master’s in Screenwriting from Columbia, Carsen is a proud graduate of the 2024 WGA's Support Staff Training Program and once made Alex Trebek laugh while appearing as a contestant on Jeopardy!. Since then, she's written novels for Penguin Random House and escaped to Brooklyn, NY, where she lives with her two idiot cats and her very smart fiancé, who never annoys her or leaves dishes in the sink.