Women Behind the Scenes Spotlight: Diane Ruggiero

Today’s Women Behind the Scenes spotlight is shone on writer and producer Diane Ruggiero.

Diane is a native of Old Bridge Township in New Jersey and her writing talent was discovered by American playwright Mark St. Germain while working as a waitress at a restaurant in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

She got her start as a writer and co-executive producer on the little seen dramedy That’s Life from 2000 to 2002. The following year she worked on the comedy Wild Card for one season. It was two years later that she was the writer of the short film called The Sound of Slyness.

Around that same time, she landed the TV show that would change her career: Veronica Mars. She was a writer and supervising producer on the show in 2004, was a writer and co-executive producer in 2005 and writer and executive producer on 2006.

After Veronica Mars came to an end, Diane worked as a writer and consulting producer on Dirty Sexy Money in 2007 as well as a consulting producer on Big Shots that same year. The following season, she worked on the short-lived series The Ex List as series creator and writer. Then in 2009, she worked as a writer and executive producer on the short-lived remake of the TV show Cupid.

Two years later, she worked as a writer and consulting producer on the short-lived comedy Free Agents; and more recently she has worked as a consulting producer on the A&E thriller Bates Motel.

After the Kickstarter campaign for Veronica Mars the movie was successful, Diane was brought in by series creator Rob Thomas to co-write the script; and she is working on the pre-production of the CW drama pilot iZombie for which Rob Thomas is the creator.

Fans can follow Diane Ruggiero at Twitter @rugz19.