Jess McKillop is a Los Angeles based screenwriter, born and raised in Washington, D.C. In addition to being the runner-up in the 2019 Script Pipeline Television Writing competition, he was a semifinalist in the 2019 Script Pipeline Screenwriting competition for his script, ​Blood Knot​.

Jess graduated from UC Santa Barbara in 2016 with a degree in Film and Media Studies. While at UCSB, he won the 2016 Dorothy Corwin Screenwriting award and the 2015 Rick Rosen Television Writing award. He also had his research paper, “Lost Priorities and Lower Standards: the Unfortunate Evolution of Media Coverage of Domestic Mass Shootings,” published in the 2015 Focus Media Journal.

In addition to his writing work, Jess has worked as a producer. In 2019, Jess was an associate producer on the feature film ​Bit​, directed by Brad Michael Elmore (​Boogeyman Pop​) and starring Diana Hopper (​Goliath​) and Nicole Maines (​Supergirl​).​ Bit ​premiered at the 2019 Frameline festival and also screened at the 2019 Outfest festival. In 2016, he was an assistant producer on the feature film ​Deserted​, directed by Ashley Avis (​Black Beauty​) and starring Mischa Barton (​The OC​) and Winter Ave Zoli (​Sons of Anarchy​). ​Deserted​ was distributed by Invincible Pictures.

Outside of writing, Jess enjoys cooking with his older brother, Greg, and reading any book he can get his hands on.