Faculty

Rebecca Schechter

Course Director: Screenwriting
Department of Film, York University

Ms. Schechter is a Gemini-award winning screenwriter. She was born in Newark, N.J. and attended the University of Chicago for one year before emigrating to Canada, where she completed her studies in the social sciences at York University.

Her career as a screenwriter took off in 1987 with the feature film Taking Care. Since then, she has written primarily for television. She has been producer, story editor and/or writer on many of Canada’s high-profile drama series, including "Blue Murder", "Degrassi: The Next Generation", "Riverdale", "Side Effects", "North of 60", "ENG" and "Street Legal".

In 2006, she developed and became showrunner/writer on the first season CBC’s "Little Mosque on the Prairie". In 2011 she returned to Mosque as Executive Producer/showrunner of its 6th and final season.

Ms. Schechter also served as president of the Writers Guild of Canada from 2004 to 2010. She is currently developing several television series and writing two feature films, as well as teaching screenwriting courses at Queen’s and York.