Screenwriter. Story consultant. Neurocomplex creative.
Thirty years writing for Hollywood, the stage, and the classroom. Then a late autism diagnosis, a chronically complex body, and a long burnout changed everything — including what I make, and how. Now I host The Neurocomplex Creative podcast and write for people who create on generator power. I was never going to fit under one hat. Turns out, that was the whole point.
“Vicki Peterson is the real thing: a working creative documenting her own recovery in real time.” Simon Scott — Co-Founder, Autistic Culture Podcast Network
The Neurocomplex Creative
A podcast about what it really takes to create when your brain and body don’t always cooperate. Deep conversations with neurodivergent creatives about burnout, unmasking, late diagnosis, intuition — and building a working life that actually fits the person living it.
A cornerstone show on the Autistic Culture Podcast Network.
A Hat on a Hat on a Hat
Essays and podcast companions for sensitive, creative, gifted, late-diagnosed, chronically complex people — anyone who defies the norm with at least three hats. Free to read.
Subscribe on Substack →Made for neurocomplex creatives
Guided audio, journals, and creative process guides — written from inside the experience, not about it. First up: Yay, You’re Here, six audio companions for the moments in a creative life nobody builds tools for.
Join the list to hear first →Thirty years of story work.
Before the hats had a name, there was the work: development executive in independent film, programs director, university screenwriting educator, produced playwright, published author. It all comes with me.
Award-winning screenplays & produced plays
Zoe and the Zebra, Mind Over Matter, Mother at War, and the produced play Cleave — stories of trauma, resilience, and identity.
Notes to Screenwriters
Co-authored craft guide (Michael Wiese Productions) on the development process, from someone who sat on the other side of the desk.
Educator & development executive
Director of development in independent film, Programs Director at Act One, screenwriting faculty at Columbia College Hollywood and NHIA. MFA, Writing for Stage and Screen.
One person. At least three hats.
I’m a writer, educator, and story consultant on California’s Central Coast — and a late-diagnosed autistic person with ADHD living a chronically complex life (EDS, POTS, MCAS).
For decades I created in ways that were slowly taking me apart. The collapse turned out to be the beginning: now everything I make — the podcast, the publication, the tools — is part of one living record of building a creative life that works with my actual brain and body instead of against them.
If you’ve ever been told you’re too much and not enough in the same breath: welcome. You’re my people.
More about Vicki