Check Out Brooke Lilia Nasser’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Brooke Lilia Nasser.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started? 
I was born and raised in Hawaii, immersed in an island culture straddling Asia and North America. The ocean is as much a character in my biography as my father or mother. I left at 18 and studied at Dartmouth College. 

I jumped around a lot in my twenties and thirties; I lived in New York City, the Cayman Islands, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Maine. I am an avid user of public transportation and often explore cities by foot. When you walk a city, you know it in a completely unique way, and spending time on the sidewalks of the places that I’ve lived sparked a passion for documentary and multi-media expressions. 

In 2001, I moved to the Cayman Islands, a country experiencing the last vestiges of British Colonialism. There, I worked for an erratic, charming ex-con-cum newspaper publisher, writing lead and feature articles. I was also hired to edit and serialize the autobiography of the Cayman Islands’ first convicted murderer… A sordid tale, actually, that earned the newspaper record sales. I did a photojournalism series on Caymanian convicts in their backyards (all of them kept pigeons) – nature vs. nurture in 35mm color. 

Writing and photography eventually led me to film, and I earned my MFA from USC’s School of Cinematic Arts in 2007. While in film school, I produced and directed several documentaries, including one on my half-brother, an ex-con living in Mojave. 

After film school, I worked for many years as an assistant on TV and Film productions before committing to writing full-time in 2013. In 2023, a film I co-wrote with retired detective Michael Kaycheck and director/producer Michael Oblowotiz entitled “Confidential Informant” became my first true feature-film credit. 

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It took 18 years before a script I worked on resulted in an actual writing credit on a feature film. One of my film school professors used to say that persistence is the most important “talent” in the industry, and I think my experiences prove that saying true. 

I started writing screenplays as an undergraduate at Dartmouth College. While there, I won the Alexander Liang Screenwriting Award for a screenplay I wrote titled Here. The film was about a group of 20-somethings going nowhere in life and had neither a beginning or an ending, jointly inspired by Gertrude Stein’s Everybody’s Autobiography and Federico Fellini’s 8 1/2. Those were the two biggest intellectual eruptions in my life at the time, and they had a profound influence on my conception of media, Art, story, and character. The judge of the contest later called me and said that he didn’t really like the screenplay (I’m paraphrasing here) but felt it was “of the moment” in a way that he couldn’t ignore. 

Despite a significant amount of encouragement early on, I never really considered film a viable profession for me personally or for a woman with no connections, so even though I continued to write screenplays, I didn’t do anything with them. Eventually, however, I felt like I had tried on as many professional hats as I could bear — from editing sales and marketing white papers in New York City to selling Greenpeace subscriptions on the sidewalk in San Francisco — that I applied to film schools and attended the University of Southern California’s Directing and Producing program. 

A graduate degree in film production didn’t open any doors for me, but it allowed me the time and space to pursue film without interruption. The cost was prohibitive — I essentially bought a house I don’t live in — but I did receive an exceptional film education, and what I learned about editing, cinematography, and sound design, in particular, has made me a stronger screenwriter. 

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I graduated with High Honors from Dartmouth College in 2000 for my thesis, a novel entitled AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A GIRL. In 2007, I graduated from USC, and my thesis project was a screenplay entitled 600 RATIONAL about how decisions we make when we are young can haunt us throughout life. Since then, I have written and produced short films, feature scripts, and documentaries. I split my time between Honolulu and Los Angeles, working as a freelance journalist and screenwriter and teaching high school English, journalism, and film. 

I enjoy using Los Angeles as a character in my writing, not simply a backdrop. The city inspires strong reactions, especially by those who don’t live here. Many understand the city simply as blurred vignettes through a passenger window. I have walked the city from sprawling end-to-end; LA is a triumph of the interplay between nature and industry. 

One of the areas in LA that I’ve written extensively about is the LA River. I have spent hundreds of hours photographing, wandering, and running along the 7-mile concrete section of the river. It’s a fascinating micro-ecosystem that sustains over 20 different bird species, including the American White Pelican and the (rarely spotted) burrowing owl, carrying the runoff of three different mountain ranges. The willow thicket in the central corridor is like a secret garden, hiding everything from coyotes and acorn woodpeckers to discarded shopping carts and homeless camps. I once saw a fisherman and his son catch a steelhead trout: trout populations used to travel and spawn in the shallows from the ocean to the headwaters, but they mostly disappeared when the river was concretized in 1938. 

My writing and photo-prose work explore complementary and antagonistic juxtapositions. I am now experimenting with layering various media forms to create a collage of the quotidian, the profane, and the sublime. 

Are there any apps, books, podcasts, blogs, or other resources you think our readers should check out?
As an English and journalism teacher, I tell my students that reading critically and rhetorically is the single best way to improve your writing. Reading also expands your knowledge of culture and community and helps you to recognize and appreciate different voices and perspectives. 

Most years, I read at least 100 new works of fiction, averaging about 8 a month. This year, I have committed to reading nonfiction, at least 5 different titles every month. This highlight so far has been Victor Frankl’s MAN’S SEARCH FOR MEANING. I don’t know how I’ve never read this book before. It is a powerful meditation on pain and power; Frankl mines his experiences in WWII and Nazi Germany to comment on love, suffering, art, responsibility… and many other aspects of living. There are so many quotes in this book that you can jot down on a slip of paper and hold in your hand against life’s darker moments. 

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bnibblet/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brooke-nasser/

Image Credits
Roger Webb
Brooke Nasser