2024 Austin Film Festival & Writers Conference

Jessica L. Folk is an Associate Professor at Western Kentucky University. Originally from New York, she holds an M.F.A. in Screenwriting from Chapman University. She primarily writes stories about queer women, identity, loss, and untold stories from history. Her screenplays have received various honors and awards at both national and international screenplay festivals and conferences, including the LGBTQ+ Los Angeles Film Festival, the Austin Film Festival, the California Women’s Film Festival, multiple ScreenCraft competitions, the Big Apple Film Festival, the Richmond International Film Festival, the Nashville Film Festival, the University Film & Video Association juried screenplay competition, and others.

Jess is here at the Austin Film Festival because her feature screenplay, SEX TALK, was selected as a Second Rounder. The script is about a queer sex therapist who struggles with her own sex & dating life. That is…until an unexpected blast from the past shows up in her life. Jess typically writes more dramatic projects, but was excited to get a chance to dive into her more comedic-leaning story instincts with this screenplay.