Alexis Wilkinson


Alexis Wilkinson is an American writer best known as the first African American president of The Harvard Lampoon. Wilkinson was on the writing staff of Veep and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and she is a contributing writer to The New Yorker.

Early life and education

Wilkinson was raised in Wheaton, Illinois and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where she graduated from high school. Her mother is a computer engineer and her father died of colon cancer when she was a child.
She attended Harvard College and studied economics, with aspirations of writing for television. Wilkinson joined The Harvard Lampoon writing staff as a freshman, and her junior year she was elected President of the publication, the first African American of any gender to hold the position.

Career

Just prior to graduating, Wilkinson sent copies of The Harvard Lampoon to the Harvard alumni trustees and asked for job leads. David Mandel was a recipient and the show runner of Veep; he hired Wilkinson onto the writing staff. She was the only person of color in the writer's room. Wilkinson left Veep to join the writing staff of Brooklyn Nine-Nine in 2016.
She left TV writing to work on her first book, which she is writing as of May 2019. She also consults on ad campaigns.
On November 2019, it was announced that Wilkinson had written an audiobook for Serial Box, called The Co-Founder, about two female entrepreneurs who hire a man to sell their product to Silicon Valley investors. It is also currently being developed into a film.
Wilkinson has been nominated for two Writers Guild of America awards.

Personal life

Wilkinson resides in San Francisco, California.