Bio.

CATHERINE LOERKE is a doctor turned writer-director dispensing medical knowledge through rom-com and fantasy. Raised by a “drink your feelings” Irish American family in small town Rhode Island, her mission is to increase global empathy by writing stories about emotionally repressed people learning to feel.

She incorporates her past lives as a surgeon, management consultant, corporate DEI expert, and Hollywood assistant (yes, Mel Gibson put out cigarettes in the very coffee that she made!) – and current life as a person in recovery – into weird, memorable, messy characters, usually women in STEM.

As a story consultant, Cat advises on projects at industry players such as Hulu, Tristar, Peacock, and Appian Way. She staffed in the writers rooms for series in development at The Film TV and Invention Studios (Nicky Weinstock) and is a WGAE Writers Room Fellow mentored by Matt Williams (HOME IMPROVEMENT) and Script Pipeline Finalist (Top 10/5K+) with her pilot script IN VITRO VERITAS. Cat wrote and directed the award-winning short film SAND MAMA, a NYFA grant winner mentored by Alison Maclean (JESUS’ SON). SAND MAMA is an official selection of Academy Award-qualifying festivals such as Cinequest, Indy Shorts, and Short Shorts Asia, as well as Evolution Mallorca, Montclair, and Salute Your Shorts, among others. She wrote two short plays commissioned and produced by NYC-based AMiOS theatre collective.

On the strength of her prose work, she was a finalist (top 1% of 6K+) in the 2024 NYC Midnights Short Story contest and selected by the 2025 Disquiet International Literary Program.

An international woman of mystery, Cat splits time between Los Angeles and Lisbon, Portugal with her psychiatrist partner (other people’s, not hers!). Obsessions: YA fantasy novels, the NYT crossword, the board game Wingspan, and fandoms of canceled shows.

Education: BA, Stanford University; MD, Yale University; MFA Screenwriting, Brooklyn College.