PROFESSIONAL BIOGRAPHY

Celia Carey is an award-winning storyteller whose career spans environmental science, high-stakes exploration, and documentary filmmaking. After earning a communications degree from Loyola in New Orleans, she worked in environmental science. Then she shifted her focus to documentary, securing early roles with National Geographic TV and the Discovery Channel.

While completing her master’s degree at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Celia associate-produced “The Andes” series for Discovery. Her time covering perilous terrain and remote expeditions in Peru and Colombia led to her first publication in Scientific American. After writing articles for Outside magazine, and producing the award-winning Arctic documentary “Ice Challenger” for Outside TV, she became a fellow of The Explorers Club.

In 2003, Celia moved back to her home state of Alabama to produce documentaries for PBS on racism, including The Quiltmakers of Gee’s Bend and Mr. Dial Has Something to Say. This impactful programming garnered industry accolades, including eleven regional Emmys, film festival awards, and a major grant from the NEA.

Moving to Napa, California, in 2008 with her husband—a winemaker and sommelier—Celia spent fourteen years capturing the culture, science, and history of the wine industry. She documented the Valley's driving forces: from hardworking immigrants and viticulturists to lavish events and life-altering environmental shifts. Celia contributed extensive video, photography, and written content to science and farmworker foundations, wineries, and media outlets.

In 2022, Celia relocated with her family to Durham, North Carolina. She transitioned her extensive media experience into the classroom, teaching photojournalism at UNC Chapel Hill, while launching a new chapter in fiction with her upmarket gothic thriller, The Dark Allocation..

THE “UNABRIDGED, BEHIND-THE SCENES” VERSION
(In My Own Words)

My career history reads a bit like a melodrama—and my parents were not overly chuffed about some of my early career pivots.

After earning my film degree, I briefly shifted focus to environmental science, working as a field sampler on the Army’s ordnance-contaminated Aberdeen Proving Ground. Eventually, I combined my passion for film and science to secure an unpaid internship with National Geographic TV in New York City.

To pay rent, I served cocktails at an Egyptian nightclub called Cleopatra's near Times Square. Nightly, I witnessed men showering belly dancers with hundred-dollar bills. Wealthy male patrons drank large quantities of Johnny Walker Black Label, while their dates ordered Dom Perignon and fruity cocktails with names like Mark Anthony's Revenge. I learned useful Arabic phrases such as, "Hello strawberry. Give me a big hug." (Although the more direct translation may be, "Oh my dizziness, you bubbly girl.") My fellow server and I would put any unfinished Dom Perignon on ice. After sweeping up all the money from the dance floor at 4 AM, we drank the champagne for breakfast.

After five months of this, National Geographic hired me full-time. I quickly learned that documentary film is a good fit for a fearless, map-obsessed person with wanderlust who enjoys reading encyclopedias.

Following the completion of my MS at Columbia University, I produced films for Discovery, PBS, and Outside while living in New York and London. I researched an extensive and varied catalogue of topics, including: volcanology, Iban headhunters, Egyptian female pharaohs, racism, hammerhead sharks, and the future of space exploration.

For Discovery, I shivered in tents for two months in the Andes, chewed coca leaves with a pushy shaman, and channeled a challenging Italian producer who bathed with Polo soap in remote villages like Julius Caesar, and introduced himself like this: “I’m Brando! Like Marlon!” I climbed into active volcanoes and ascended a 19,000-foot peak to document the discovery of sacrificed Incan children.

For Outside, I drove a snowmobile 150 miles with a bacterial lung infection in an Alaskan blizzard, resided in the Styrofoam igloo library of a frozen Inupiat Arctic village, with roaming polar and no indoor plumbing, and hung out of a helicopter to film an English real estate tycoon-Scientologist attempting to cross the Bering Strait in an amphibious snow groomer.

I developed a reputation for freezing-weather journalism. This is ironic because I grew up in the Deep South and wear sweaters when it's 75 degrees. However, for time served covering remote expeditions and contributing to science, The Explorers Club elected me a Fellow.

After moving to Napa Valley with my winemaker husband, I launched a media company focused on the wine industry. Over fourteen years of residing there, I explored the region's viticulture, history, and legacy while highlighting the vital contributions of immigrant farmworkers.

My work took me from remote mountaintops and luxurious subterranean tasting rooms to celebrity-filled dinners, and ultra-exclusive auctions with improbably wild lots, including: writing songs with famous musicians andChange text. getting kidnapped by a paramilitary group and held for ransom. Clients included The Wine Advocate, the Napa Valley Grapegrowers, the Napa Valley Farmworker Foundation, and numerous luxury wineries. I also wrote a bimonthly newspaper column, aptly titled "I Married a Wine Snob."

In 2022, my family relocated to Durham, North Carolina, where I write, photograph, parent two neurotic dogs and one teenager, and mentor emerging storytellers—occasionally teaching at local universities.

Drawing from a lifetime of intriguing experiences around the world, I recently expanded into fiction writing. My recent novel, The Dark Allocation, is an upmarket gothic thriller based in Napa Valley—because high-end winery tasting rooms opening at 10 AM can create both monsters and thrilling moments.