Vanessa has a Bachelor of Applied Arts from Whitireia (majoring in scriptwriting). As a student on the Whitireia Creative Writing Programme, Ness discovered a passion for scriptwriting and learnt a lot about the value of following an idea through. She won two prizes at the Radio New Zealand ‘Student Shorts’ competition and each script was produced in the studio, playing on air in February 2010. In 2010 Ness was also one of six candidates chosen for the New Zealand Film Commission’s First Writer’s Initiative. As well as teaching on the Creative Writing Programme, Ness is a student at The New Zealand Film and Television School in Wellington.

“I think being a member of a writing course helps writers understand and develop their own writing process while benefitting from the discoveries made within the group.”