Jennie Snyder Urman

Jennie Snyder Urman "was named one of Variety's '10 TV Writer's to Watch' in 2012." Initially, Urman was working as a waitress, while she looked for opportunities in front of the camera in New York City. Urman's acting endeavors were to no avail as she describes herself as not "thick-skinned enough or perhaps talented enough or wanted it enough as a career" to be in front of the lens. Verini states, that Urman "like many tyros, initially found it hard to stop defining herself by her day job" she was told "to stop waitressing. This is a job.'" On September 10, 2001, Jennie Snyder Urman and her friend, Victoria Webster, embarked on a new journey as they left New York City for Los Angeles to pursue writing in the realm of television. Urman describes the historical context of the move from New York, as "disconcerting" given the duo landed on the West Coast, one day prior to September 11th, 2001. Bob Verini, postulates that Urman "deciding to crank out a slew of spec TV episodes with an old college roommate proved the catalyst for [her], who in less than a decade has [since] parlayed credits on "Gilmore Girls" and "90210" into creating and exec producing The CW's fall medical skein 'Emily Owens, M.D.'"

Urman received her start in television writing in 2003, working as a staff writer on the ABC Comedy, "Hope & Faith". Urman worked with the show for a period of three years, beginning as a writer, then as a story editor, and in her final year, she became the executive story editor. In an interview with the Alumni of Princeton, Urman explains "[the] ladder you climb when you're a TV writer. You start as a staff writer and go through each level until you become an executive producer." Moreover, for those unfamiliar with the hierarchy, it is as follows: writer's assistant, staff writer, story editor, executive story editor, co-producer, supervising producer, co-executive producer, executive producer, and lastly, showrunner. This lateral progression in the industry was exemplified by Urman's entry into the world of television as a staff writer for "Hope & Faith." Over the following three years, she was promoted to story editor and then executive story writer. Moreover, Jennie Snyder Urman has paved her path of success in just over a decade, as a result of "Urman's entry into the industry [that] coincided with the heyday of TV 'dramedy' Verini describes this as "an amalgam to which [Urman's] instincts are particularly suited."