Colleen McGuinness '99 (Comedy Writer-Producer, About a Boy, 30 Rock)

By Sara Lynne Wright

“A lot of recent graduates, especially Harvard students, want to do the responsible thing and have a job lined up when they move to Hollywood, but it’s really hard to do that unless you already live here.”

Comedy writer-producer Colleen McGuinness has practiced what she preaches.

As a writer for film and television, including 30 ROCK and ABOUT A BOY, she has no shame admitting that when she first moved out to L.A., she was unemployed.

Half-Korean and half-Irish but raised by her Irish-Norwegian grandparents since she was six months old, Colleen says the feeling of being an outsider is part of what has fueled her to write.