Background
Semple was born in Santa Monica, California. Her family moved to Spain soon after she was born. There her father, the screenwriter Lorenzo Semple, Junior. wrote the pilot for the television series Batman.
Semple was born in Santa Monica, California. Her family moved to Spain soon after she was born. There her father, the screenwriter Lorenzo Semple, Junior. wrote the pilot for the television series Batman.
Semple attended boarding school at Choate Rosemary Hall, then received a Bachelor in English from Barnard College in 1986.
She is the author of This One Is Mine (2008) and Where"d You Go, Bernadette (2012). Her television credits include Beverly Hills, 90210, Mad About You, Saturday Night Live, Arrested Development, Suddenly Susan and Ellen. The family moved to Los Angeles and then to Aspen, Colorado.
Her first screenwriting job was in 1992, for the television show Beverly Hills, 90210.
She was nominated for a Primetime Emmy, Outstanding Television Series, in 1997 for Mad About You. In 2006 and 2007, she was nominated for a Writer"s Guild of America award, for Arrested Development.
This One is Mine was a finalist for the 2010 Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award. She appeared in the 2004 David O. Russell film I Heart Huckabees.
Her writing has appeared in the magazine The New Yorker.
She has also taught fiction writing at the Richard Hugo House.
She is active in the Seattle literary community, and is a founding member of Seattle 7 Writers.