Iris Yamashita

Born in Missouri, raised in Hawaii and having lived in Guam, California, and Japan, Iris Yamashita was able to experience a diversity of culture while growing up. She studied engineering at U.C. San Diego and U.C. Berkeley and also spent a year at the University of Tokyo studying virtual reality. Her first love, however, has always been fiction writing which she pursued as a hobby on the side. Iris submitted her first screenplay to a competition where she was discovered by an agent at the Creative Artists Agency (CAA) who offered to represent her. Her big break came when she was recruited to write the script LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA for Clint Eastwood. LETTERS was named “Best Picture” by both the National Board of Review and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. It received a Golden Globe award for “Best Foreign Language Film” of 2006 and was nominated for 4 Oscars including “Best Picture” and “Best Original Screenplay.” CITY UNDER ONE ROOF is her debut mystery novel set in a tiny Alaskan town where everyone lives in a single high-rise building. Iris continues to work in Hollywood, developing for both film and streaming media and has also dabbled in writing a musical for a Japanese theme park with Tony Award-winning composer, Jeanine Tesori. She has taught screenwriting at the University of California, Los Angeles and the American Film Institute.