Jule Selbo

Jule Selbo is novelist, playwright, screenwriter and educator. Basically she loves stories and words and using words to tell stories. And she likes to cook and play pickleball. Her novels include Find Me in Florence (2019, Pandamoon Publishing, First Place Prize Chatelaine Women's Fiction/Romance), the historical fiction works Dreams of Discovery, Based on the Life of Explorer John Cabot (2018, Barbera Foundation), Breaking Barriers, Laura Bassi and the Enlightenment (2020, Barbera Foundation, nominated for Goeth Award) and Pilgrim Girl (a diary/cookbook of a girl who came over on the Mayflower, co-written with Laura Peters).

Her plays have been produced in New York City and Los Angeles, as well as in regional theaters across the country. Her play Isolate won the Los Angeles Women’s Playwrighting Prize, her play Boxes received multiple awards at the Los Angeles Independent Theater ceremonies in 2016. Boxes had its most recent production at Portland’s Good Theater in the Fall 2019. Her screenwriting credits include Young Indiana Jones Chronicles (Lucasfilm), HBO’s Women Behind Bars – Prison Stories, Hard Promises (Columbia Pictures) Hunchback of Notre Dame II and Ariel (Disney), Melrose Place (Fox), Hercules (Universal) and more.

She earned her Ph.D. in Film Studies, is a professor in the Cinema and TV Arts Department of California State University, where she teaches film and screenwriting. She now adds Maine Media Workshop and South Portland's Acorn Theater to her teaching tasks. She lectures internationally and has written extensively on writing and film history. Her books Film Genre for the Screenwriter and Screenplay: Building Story Through Character are used in universities and seminars across the USA. Her book Women Screenwriters: An International Guide (2016, co-edited with Jill Nelmes) serves as a base for all research on female screenwriters 1890 to 2016). Jule served as co-editor of the prestigious Journal of Screenwriting for eight years. Now - as a resident of Portland - she’s thrilled to be in its amazing writing (and pickleball) communities.

The first of her private detective series (Dee Rommel Mysteries, set in Portland) is set for publication Summer 2021.