Our Founder & Executive Director Jill Gurr grew up in East Meadow (Long Island), New York with two terrific parents, Rusty and Larry Gurr. Starting at 8 years-old, she found solace through writing, when she created poems and short stories to express her feelings and it has been her passion throughout life. Jill earned a Bachelors degree in Broadcasting and Film from Boston University, where she volunteered as a disc-jockey on the radio station.

After graduating from B.U., Jill was the Public Access TV Coordinator for what is now Time-Warner Cable in Santa Monica. She produced and directed hundreds of programs, and also worked as an assistant to producers at Twentieth Century-Fox Studios. Jill then held the position of Assistant to the Vice-President of Creative Affairs at Paramount Studios, where she was also responsible for covering scripts as a story analyst. She has lived and traveled extensively around the world and is fluent in Spanish, French and Italian.

For 18 years, Jill worked as a Script Supervisor on award-winning feature, television and commercial productions on locations all over the world, with famous actors and directors (credits available at www.imdb.com). As a Screenwriter, two of her scripts were produced: "Rigged," adapted from a novel by James Hadley Chase and starring George Kennedy, distribution by Kodiak Films and "Socrates," a PBS pilot for "The Immortals" series starring Ed Asner. Several of her original screenplays were optioned.

Having been given so many wonderful opportunities through her parents, Jill felt compelled to give back to youth who weren't as lucky. She had an idea for a screenplay about two rival gang members at the same detention camp. She tried to set up a screenplay workshop at different detention camps for over a year, to no avail. After the L.A. riots in 1992, Jill joined a volunteer group, where she met Wanda Patterson who worked at Optimist Youth Homes in Eagle Rock. Through Wanda, Jill was finally able to mentor a group of teenage boys that were incarcerated for a variety of crimes.

After several months of developing this script with up to 30 youth, not only did she option the completed screenplay to producers, but several boys learned how to read and write, while others wanted to go back to school or attend college. A tough gang leader even had tattoos removed. Based on this success, Jill initiated a second screenwriting workshop at a coed detention facility and got the same results.

Due to the positive responses of these youth and the amazing transformations they went through, Jill was inspired to found Create Now (originally called Write Now) as a nonprofit organization in 1996.

Jill is a member of the Association of Mentoring Professionals. She is an active participant in the Camp Community Transition Program (CCTP), organized by the Los Angeles Department of Probation to help adjudicated youth transition back into society once released from detention facilities. She was a Peer Reviewer for the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs 2008 Grants Program.

In addition, Jill is involved with two other coalitions: Korean Churches for Community Development (KCCD), which works to stop the steady increase in Asian-American youth gangs, and also YEAH! (Youth Empowerment Arts Hub), a group of arts organizations that collaborates to bring more arts programs to at-risk youth in the San Fernando Valley area. Jill is also a proud member of Arts for LA and Americans for the Arts. She is currently writing a book about mentoring called, "Change Lives: Mentor Youth."

Jill would like to show appreciation to the late writer/producer Leslie Stevens, a professor of Advanced Screenwriting at the Center for Advanced Film and Television Studies at the American Film Institute. She met Mr. Stevens through his student Erika Clarke, who shared with him Jill's dream. Mr. Stevens donated crucial seed money in 1996 so that Create Now could become a reality. Mr. Stevens was the creator of "The Outer Limits," writer of "The Return to the Blue Lagoon" and the Executive Producer of "McCloud" and "Battlestar Galactica."