Janine DeMaria is an award-winning writer for screen and stage currently in development as Writer on the film PIGEON (Director: Zoe Cassavetes, Producer: Debbie Liebling, Inner Child Productions). She has created and developed television series with Sam Raimi (Skydance), Nina Tassler (CBS), Scott Morgan and Bryan Unkless (Screen Arcade) and Ellen Pompeo, Laura Holstein (Calamity Jane Productions). She is a multiple Finalist for ScreenCraft’s Drama and Comedy Pilot Competitions, Drama and Comedy Feature Competitions and FilmFreeway’s Feature and Pilot Competitions. Her plays have been performed, developed and selected for the Ground & Field Play Festival, Bike City Theatre Company, ScreenCraft Stage Play Competition, B Street Theatre’s New Comedies Festival, B Street Theatre’s New Play Series, The Magic Theatre SF, NYC Playground Experiment’s Faces of America Kraine Theatre in NYC. Festival of New Works, N.Y.U. Playfest, and the Open Arts Film Festival. Apprentice: B Street Theatre, Artistic Associate: Magic Theatre SF. 

Janine started her career in the arts after quitting her D1 College Softball team and listening to her college roommate who smoked a joint then dared her to audition for their University's theatre production. She took the dare and was awarded a part. The play was selected as a Finalist for the American College Theater Festival at the Kennedy Center where she won the Achievement of Merit Award. Her Director then dared her to audition for Equity theatre work and was awarded a year long apprenticeship with the B Street Theater, founded by Aaron Sorkin. It was there where she figured out she really wanted to write the things actors say and that she likes to be dared to do stuff.
 

After working in Development at Tom Lassally's production company then with Dickhouse Productions (MTV's Jackass, Wildboyz), she had an identity crisis and thought that getting a 'real' job was the way to go. She was an Advertising Executive at a fortune 500 company, worked in operating rooms at Stanford Hospital, ran an Orthopedic medical facility, flew all over the globe as a Flight Attendant for Virgin America, filmed nuptials as a wedding videographer, then lived through a very notable Saturn Return and concluded that ‘real jobs’ especially those that require nylons, are not her bag – being a writer is.
 

Janine moved to NYC and got her M.F.A. at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, then shipped all her stuff to LA and started selling pilots and obsessively buying plants which she believes is the L.A. equivalent to having children. Then she actually had one with her husband Mac. After the dumpster fire that was the pandemic, Janine reluctantly agreed to move her daughter and two dogs to Texas after her husband got a great job offer. She is on her third year of living in there where she is Captain of her women's pickleball team, Room Mom for her daughter's class, and on the Board of her HOA and cannot believe, on multiple levels, that all of that is true.

She credits all the beautiful nutjobs and wild worlds she's encountered in her varied life for providing her with endless material and only refers to herself in the third person when she's writing her bio.

To request a script or to be given access to Janine's LOGLINES page, email: info@janinedemaria.com

AWARDS & MERITS

Outstanding Screenplays Shorts Competition

SEMIFINALIST 2026 "HOLD ON"

Outstanding Screenplays Pilot Competition

SEMIFINALIST 2026 "UNBRIDLED"

Outstanding Screenplays Feature Competition

SEMIFINALIST 2025 "OUT OF LEFT FIELD"

Reno Tahoe Screenplay Contest T.V. Pilot Competition

FINALIST 2025 "UNBRIDLED"

Coverfly Top 25% All Time Comedy Features

2024 - "THAT F-ING DRONE" 

Shore Scripts T.V. Pilot Contest 

QUARTERFINALIST - 2023 "THERE YOU ARE"

WeScreenplay Short Script Lab 

SEMIFINALIST - 2023 "THE UNICORN LOAN"

Big Apple Film Festival Screenplay Competition

SEMIFINALIST - 2023 "THE UNICORN LOAN"

ScreenCraft Short Screenplay Competition

SEMIFINALIST - 2023 "THE UNICORN LOAN"

ScreenCraft Comedy Competition / Top 3%

FINALIST – 2020 "STAY"

ScreenCraft Screenwriting Fellowship / Top 3% 

FINALIST – 2019 "FLYING HIGH"

Ground & Field Theatre Festival 

OFFICIAL SELECTION  (2 years)

2017 - "TWO PLUS TWO PLUS ONE"

2019 - "OVER THERE OUTSIDE"

B Street Theatre New Works Comedy Festival 

FINALIST – 2018 "TWO PLUS TWO PLUS ONE"

NYU Open Arts

ORIGINAL FELLOW MEMBER - 2016

NYU Tisch Festival of New Works

OFFICIAL SELECTION – 2016 "HAWK & NIGHTINGALE"

NYU Tisch Open Arts Film Festival

OFFICIAL SELECTION – 2016 "BLUEBIRD"

NYU Tisch Interactive Communications Program

GOOGLE GRANT RECIPIENT – 2016

NYU Tisch Manus-Salzman Performance Scholarship

RECIPIENT – 2015

American College Theatre Finals, Kennedy Center

MERITORIOUS ACHIEVEMENT AWARD – 2002