Julie Plec Books in Order

Julie Plec grew up in Park Forest, a Chicago suburb, with an early taste for spooky stories. She was an avid reader of writers such as Stephen King and Robin Cook, and she has spoken about being drawn to the big feelings that genre fiction can make possible.

She went to Northwestern University, where Greg Berlanti was one of her classmates, and graduated in 1994. Writing was not an easy first step. After doing badly in a playwriting class, Plec aimed for work in television development instead.

After college, she moved to Los Angeles with one useful connection, a friend who helped her land a job as an assistant to director Wes Craven. While working on Scream, she met screenwriter Kevin Williamson. They became friends and collaborators, and Plec later worked as an associate producer on Scream 2 while helping Williamson with writing work.

That was the turn.

Plec went on to work with Williamson's production company on shows including Dawson's Creek and Wasteland. She learned the day-to-day work of making television from the production side, then realized she was already helping shape stories. As she later put it, she was writing for television before she fully recognized it as her own career.

Her first major television writing opportunity came during Kyle XY, where she was also a producer. A script assignment in 2006 led to more writing work, and she rose to co-executive producer during the show's three-season run. It was the practical training ground for the role she wanted next: running shows as well as writing them.

In 2009, Plec and Williamson developed The Vampire Diaries from L.J. Smith's novels. The show followed Elena Gilbert, Stefan Salvatore, Damon Salvatore, and the long shadow cast by Katherine Pierce. Plec helped build the television version's mix of romance, family conflict, supernatural danger, and small-town secrets. In 2013, she created its spin-off, The Originals, centered on the Mikaelson siblings.

Her three The Originals novels, The Rise, The Loss, and The Resurrection, head back to eighteenth-century New Orleans. They focus on Klaus, Elijah, and Rebekah Mikaelson as vampires, witches, and werewolves fight over the city, while the siblings test their promise to remain together. Readers who enjoy the show's family feuds and old-world supernatural politics will find that same material at the heart of the books.

Plec has also worked on The Tomorrow People, Legacies, Roswell, New Mexico, and Vampire Academy. In 2014, after years as a writer, producer, and showrunner, she directed television for the first time.

The thread through her work is simple: people with impossible problems still have to deal with love, loyalty, grief, and the relatives who know exactly how to push their buttons.