Cord Jefferson

Cord Jefferson is an American writer and director. After studying at the College of William & Mary he started a career in journalism and wrote for numerous publications before becoming an editor at Gawker until 2014.

Jefferson transitioned to working as a writer for television. He wrote for the Comedy Central late-night series The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore (2015–2016), the Netflix comedy series Master of None (2017), and the NBC sitcom The Good Place (2017–2019). For his work on the HBO limited series Watchmen (2019), he received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Limited Series or Movie. He made his feature directorial debut with the satire American Fiction (2023), for which he received a nomination for Best Picture and won Best Adapted Screenplay at the 96th Academy Awards.

Early life and education
Cord Jefferson was born in Tucson, Arizona, to a white mother and black father, an attorney. After living outside the United States for several years until Jefferson was about five years old, the family returned to Tucson. His maternal grandfather was shocked by his daughter's choice to marry a black man, and he shut her and his grandson out of his life. Jefferson's parents divorced when he was 14 years old, after his first year of high school. Jefferson graduated from Canyon del Oro High School north of Tucson.

He attended the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, where his father had attended law school. After college, Jefferson lived in Los Angeles and in Brooklyn, New York. He also went to NYU business school.

Jefferson's mother died in 2016 of cancer. When his father needed a kidney transplant in July 2008, Jefferson donated one of his, traveling to Saudi Arabia where his father lives. Jefferson wrote a personal essay on the experience, noting that he was treated for atrial fibrillation and that, after surgery, he quit smoking and began to take better care of his health.

2009–2014: Journalism and Gawker
As a writer, Jefferson got his start in journalism. Among his first jobs were writing for both Stereohyped and MollyGood. He spent two years as an editor at Gawker, from 2012 to 2014. He also wrote for publications including USA Today, Huffington Post, The Root, and The New York Times Magazine.

2014–present: Television work and film debut
Jefferson started his television career in 2014 as a staff writer for the Starz comedy-drama series Survivor's Remorse before writing for the comedy Central late night series The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore from 2015 to 2016. Jefferson then became a story editor and consulting producer for Aziz Ansari's Netflix comedy series Master of None (2017) and the Mike Schur-created NBC sitcom The Good Place (2017–2019), for which he received Writers Guild of America Award nominations. For his work on the HBO limited series Watchmen (2019), he received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Limited Series or Movie for the episode, "This Extraordinary Being". In the middle of 2020, Jefferson worked on a TV series about his time writing for Gawker. He is developing the show for Apple TV+. Later in that year, he signed an overall deal with Warner Bros. TV.

In 2021, Jefferson served as a writer and supervising producer for the HBO limited series Station Eleven. He made his feature directorial debut with the satirical film American Fiction (2023), which won the People's Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival.