Alexander began her career writing stage plays in New Zealand and almost left the industry to apply for medical school after receiving multiple rejections for short film funding. She won an international student playwriting contest in 1990 with a feminist reinterpretation of
T.S. Eliot's poem
The Waste Land, titled
My Nightingale has Come Unzipped. The film was shot in New Zealand's
South Island at the
Hokitika Wildfoods Festival with a budget of $350,000 Her first job in television was as a producer, writer and director for the New Zealand children television series
Being Eve. The series was nominated for an
International Emmy Award in the Children and Young People category. Alexander wrote for the
Netflix series
Vikings: Valhalla and was also a writer for the comedy-drama television series
The Great, which was nominated for numerous awards, including two
Writers Guild of America awards for which Alexander was a listed nominee. She has written for the British-Canadian television series
Tin Star and the Australian television series
Love Child,
The Secret Daughter and
The Wrong Girl, for which she was nominated for an
AWGIE Award. She directed the New Zealand television series
Agent Anna. On 21 January 2021,
ViacomCBS International named Alexander as the lead writer for its development of a television series about the Italian
baroque artist
Artemisia Gentileschi. Titled "Artemisia", the series is also being produced by former ViacomCBS International Studios UK managing director Jill Offman and ''
Pan's Labyrinth'' producer
Frida Torresblanco, who said the development "will be a contemporary feminist piece that is at once provocative and transgressive, invoking the spirit of our present moment in an eloquent and elegant way”. After the fall of Kabul to the Taliban in 2021, Vanessa helped more than 100 Afghan women and their families escape Afghanistan and created a network that coordinated the rescue of more than 300 Afghan women fleeing the Taliban. For this she received the Keys to the City of Newcastle in 2023, as well as the 2023 Golden Wattle Award, an annual award given to an Australian who has brought honour and inspiration to their fellow Australians over the previous 12 months. ==Filmography==