Karen Sprecher

Though she didn't plan a career in film, Karen Sprecher became a co-screenwriter and producer after she joined her older sister, Jill Sprecher, in New York in the 1990s. Eight years younger than her sister, Sprecher followed in her educational footsteps when she decided to attend college in her hometown at the University of Wisconsin/Madison. After working in Chicago as a social worker, Sprecher moved to New York in 1992 and earned a graduate degree in social work at N.Y.U. Her job experiences as a temp and the insights into human behavior afforded her by her studies, however, took Sprecher in another professional direction when she collaborated with her sister Jill on the screenplay for Clockwatchers (1997). A wry, clear-eyed take on women's experiences at the bottom of the corporate ladder, Clockwatchers attracted praise at the Sundance Film Festival. Happy with her new career, Sprecher subsequently co-wrote 13 Conversations About One Thing (2002) and shared the financial debt with her sister to get it made. Featuring a sterling cast in five intersecting stories about the workings of fate, 13 Conversations About One Thing earned positive notice at several film festivals in 2001 before it made its way into theaters in 2002.