Jack Messitt has been named Cornell College’s 2025-2026 Distinguished Visiting Writer for the college’s Center for the Literary Arts. As the Distinguished Visiting Writer, he will teach Screenwriting for Block 7 in the spring of 2026.
Messitt has over 25 years of experience in the film industry and is an award-winning cameraman, director, and screenwriter who has worked on films and television shows such as “Scandal,” “Mixed-ish,” and “Midnight Movie.” He received a journalism and film studies degree from University of Indiana Bloomington and an M.F.A. in cinematography from The American Film Institute.
In his Cornell course, students will use the block to write a short film or complete the first act of a feature film screenplay. They will learn the technical methods for bringing stories to life on screen. Through rigorous in-class exercises, collaborative brainstorming sessions, one-on-one time with their instructor, and constructive feedback from their classmates, students will build their skills. They’ll master fundamental screenwriting standards and techniques, mythic story structure and character archetypes, and traditional three-act structure. Students will also learn to edit their work and successfully apply constructive creative feedback in their rewriting process.
Each year The Center for the Literary Arts brings in distinguished writers to teach topic-based, upper-level creative writing courses not typically taught by the standing faculty. The writers rotate among fiction, poetry, journalism, creative nonfiction, children’s literature, and a range of other topics. While on campus, the writers also give readings or lectures.
Robert P. Dana Director of the Center for the Literary Arts, Professor Rebecca Entel, emphasized how delighted the Center and the Department of English and Creative Writing are to welcome another Distinguished Visiting Writer to Cornell.
“This program offers our students an exceptional opportunity to learn from working writers," Entel said. "Students will not only receive individualized attention as they practice the art of screenwriting; they will also benefit from Jack Messitt’s decades of professional experience on set. Students remember these courses for the rest of their lives.”