Josh Senter

Joshua Ray Senter (born 14 February 1979) is an American screenwriter best known for his work on the television series Desperate Housewives.

Senter was born in Plato, Missouri, and his first Hollywood ambition was to become a Disney animator. After he sent his portfolio of drawings to Disney at the age of seventeen, the company called to tell him they were impressed but were not currently hiring, and he should resubmit in another six months. During those six months, he decided to pursue film directing, his other passion, and sent a collection of homemade films to Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. He was one of fifteen film students selected that year, and one of the only students to have not already graduated from college.

Senter redirected his pursuit of directing to writing, working on spec scripts, both feature length and for television, before being taken on as a client at Writer's and Artist Agency. Soon he landed his first job on the lesbian drama The L Word, for which he wrote one episode. Within a year after leaving The L Word, Senter returned to television when he was hired as a staff writer on the ABC drama series Desperate Housewives. He has since written six episodes spanning across the series' first, second and third seasons, debuting with the episode "Goodbye for Now". He was hired as a staff writer, made a story editor in the show's second season and promoted to an executive story editor in the third season. He wrote many of Bree, Lynette and Mary Alice's storylines, for which he drew much inspiration from his own mother.

In 2006 Senter was nominated for a Writers Guild of America Award for the episode "Don't Look at Me". In 2014 Joshua helped write and produce a new series for ABC Family called Chasing Life. And in 2015 he began work as a writer and producer for the critically acclaimed MTV series Finding Carter.

Joshua's debut novel Daisies, about the evolution of love in America over the last 70 years, was released by Diversion Books on July 22, 2014.

Senter grew up on a 500-acre (2.0 km2) farm in Fort Leonard Wood near Plato, Missouri and was homeschooled with his four sisters by his mother Brenda. Before the age of thirteen, his parents' fundamental Christian beliefs did not allow him to watch or their family to own a television, so instead he spent his time alone drawing, painting, throwing pottery and sewing: "Being alone so much probably helped me become a better writer since it’s just you and the computer when you write," he says of his childhood. He recalls in particular his first viewing of Jurassic Park, which he says inspired him to become a filmmaker. He and his younger sister Hannah, now an Atlantic Theater Company member and actress, bought a video camera which they used to make homemade short films and music videos.