Valerie Peterson

Hi, Stage 32 folks! Like many of you, I tell stories with words and pictures and sometimes both.

I'm currently focusing my writing on TV and I was a finalist for the 2015 CBS TV Writers Mentoring Program. My TV procedural / mystery drama pilot, Reconciling Jimmy, achieved Second Rounder status in the 2015 Austin Film Festival Screenwriters Festival and was a Quarterfinalist in the ScreenCraft TV Pilot Launch competition. The Maid of Honor, a narrative comedic short film I wrote and directed, was an Official Selection of the Sedona International Film Festival and my Jane Austen / time travel screenplay, The Jane Austen Syndrome, has been recognized by numerous screenplay competitions, including those sponsored by The Austin Film Festival, Cinequest, The Big Apple Film Festival, and MORE magazine.

I'm also currently completing my first novel, which is very long and involves intertwining mysteries, book publishing, epistolary elements, and at least two dead bodies.

I'm the author of the “entertainingly irreverent”* Peterson’s Holiday Helper and Peterson’s Happy Hour humor/cocktail books (Random House/Clarkson Potter), and I'm the co-author (with Janice Fryer) of Cookie Craft (a backlist bestseller!) and Cookie Craft Christmas cookie decorating how-to books (Storey Publishing/Workman). I also occasionally writes for publications such as the New York Times.

My checkered past includes a number of years in the corporate book publishing world where, among many other duties, I produced videos, audiotapes, and commercials.