Writer's Statement

Evolving from haiku to comics to screenwriting for low-budget horror films, bilingual Canadian screenwriter Jessica Tremblay discovers a common bond in these disciplines through minimalist, humorous visual writing full of twists and turns. Her scripts use few locations and characters, and omit special effects, leaving many events to unfold between the lines. She often compares her style to a snow-covered field with a few branches jutting out, evoking both simplicity and depth.

 

Bio

 

Jessica Tremblay is a bilingual Canadian screenwriter based in Vancouver. She is also a haiku poet and a clean-lined cartoonist who favours a minimalist approach to scriptwriting.

The poet first published two collections of haiku, Le sourire de l'Épouvantail (2003) and Les saisons de l'Épouvantail (2004), with publisher Éditions David. Her haiku now appear in over 15 anthologies in Canada, Europe and the United States, including Hélène Leclerc's Le plus petit poème au monde.

 

Her haiku have been exhibited in public spaces, including the streets of Washington D.C., the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, the Montreal Metro, the Grande Bibliothèque and Vancouver's SkyTrain and buses. Winner of the Haiku Invitational at the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival, her poem was carved into a rock at the Vancouver VanDusen Botanical Gardens.

 

In 2007, she created the comic strip Old Pond to introduce the public to haiku. Starting in 2013, she was called upon to be cartoonist-in-residence and speaker at Haiku North America, Seabeck Haiku Getaway and Hot Springs Haiku, in addition to being invited as a keynote speaker at Haiku Canada Weekend. In 2014-2015, she received grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and the British Columbia Arts Council to explore the hybrid genre of haiku-comics.

 

In 2022, she was chosen to take part in the ILINU/ILIDI digital literature incubator and collaborated with Mexican poet Marjha Paulino on a digital work featured in the Electronic Literature Organization's ELO 2024 (un)linked exhibition.

 

After eight years working in the television industry, notably at Global News in Montreal and at Diversus alongside producers Ari A. Cohen and Evan Beloff, whose documentaries have been broadcast on Radio-Canada, CBC, Global, CTV, RDI, WTSN and City TV, she now devotes her time to writing feature films.

 

Winner of the From Our Dark Side competition, she was mentored by Vancouver Women in Film and Television to develop her first feature, Storage. The project was pitched at the Fantasia International Film Festival's Frontières co-production market in 2018, thanks to a Passport to Markets grant from Creative BC.

 

Jessica now devotes her time to writing low-budget horror films featuring female protagonists. Her short film Cocoon is currently in development.