Erin Levy: The Mad Men Writer Behind the Emmy Wins

Last updated: October 31, 2026

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Table of Contents

• Quick Answer
• Who Is Erin Levy?
• From USC to the Mad Men Writers’ Room
• The Mad Men Episodes She Wrote
• Emmy and Writers Guild Awards
• Counterpart and Life After Mad Men
• Her Father, Lawrence H. Levy
• What Is Not Publicly Known
• Why Her Career Matters
• Frequently Asked Questions

Quick Answer

Erin Levy is an American television writer best known for her work on the AMC drama Mad Men, where she rose from writing assistant in season 3 to staff writer and shared in an Emmy Award and Writers Guild of America (WGA) Awards for the show. Her first co-written episode was the season 3 finale, “Shut the Door. Have a Seat” (2009); her first solo credit, “The Chrysanthemum and the Sword” (2010), won the WGA Award for episodic drama. She later wrote for Starz’s Counterpart (2017–2019), and her father is veteran television writer Lawrence H. Levy.

Who Is Erin Levy?

Erin Levy is an American television writer whose name appears in the credits of some of the most acclaimed drama of the last twenty years, yet who has never chased the spotlight herself. A writer’s work shows up in dialogue, structure, and character choices rather than on screen, and Levy’s career is a textbook example of how that quiet craft builds, step by step, inside a writers’ room.

Her profile rests on two shows: Mad Men, Matthew Weiner’s AMC drama about a 1960s New York advertising agency (2007–2015, starring Jon Hamm as Don Draper), and Counterpart, the Starz science-fiction spy series (2017–2019). Searches for her name also turn up other professionals called Erin Levy, so precision matters: this article is about the television writer who joined Mad Men in 2009.

From USC to the Mad Men Writers’ Room

Levy grew up in a household where television writing was the family business. Her father, Lawrence H. Levy, was a working television writer, and Erin took a screenwriting seminar at the University of Southern California (USC) while still in high school. That early taste of the craft set her direction: she studied screenwriting as an undergraduate at USC, graduating in 2005.

One of her USC professors was Matthew Weiner, then known as a writer on The Sopranos and creator of an unproduced pilot called Mad Men. The two kept in touch, and when Weiner needed a writing assistant for Mad Men season 3 in 2009, he brought Levy onto the crew. In television, the assistant’s chair is also an audition: assistants sit in the room and learn how a showrunner thinks. Levy learned fast, was promoted to staff writer for season 4, and stayed into season 6, moving from notes and period research to pitching stories and writing full episodes.

The Mad Men Episodes She Wrote

Levy’s first episode credit could hardly have been bigger: she co-wrote the season 3 finale, “Shut the Door. Have a Seat,” with Weiner himself. Aired November 8, 2009, it is widely regarded as one of the series’ finest episodes. Don Draper, Roger Sterling, Bert Cooper, and Lane Pryce learn their agency is about to be swallowed by a takeover, and instead hatch a risky plan to break away and found Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, while Don and Betty’s marriage formally comes apart.

Her first solo credit came in season 4 with “The Chrysanthemum and the Sword” (August 22, 2010), built around the firm’s pitch to a Japanese client and the cultural misunderstandings that follow. Later that season came “Chinese Wall” (season 4, episode 11, October 3, 2010), in which news leaks that Lucky Strike, the agency’s dominant client, is leaving. In season 6 she wrote “To Have and to Hold” (season 6, episode 4, 2013), following Joan Harris on a night out and Don watching his wife Megan kiss another actor for her soap opera. The pattern is clear: Levy was trusted with stories about institutions under strain — themes at the very heart of Mad Men.

Her credited episodes, in order, are:

• “Shut the Door. Have a Seat” — Mad Men, season 3, episode 13 (2009), co-written with Matthew Weiner
• “The Chrysanthemum and the Sword” — Mad Men, season 4, episode 5 (2010), solo writing credit
• “Chinese Wall” — Mad Men, season 4, episode 11 (2010)
• “To Have and to Hold” — Mad Men, season 6, episode 4 (2013)

The same fact-checked approach used for profiles like Cillian Murphy’s height applies here: where a credit is shared or a detail is uncertain, this article says so rather than smoothing it over.

Emmy and Writers Guild Awards

Levy’s awards came quickly, and they came as part of a team — which is how television writing awards usually work. At the February 2010 Writers Guild Awards ceremony, Levy and the rest of the Mad Men writing staff won the WGA Award for Best Drama Series for season 3. In 2010, she and the writing staff also shared in an Emmy Award for the show.

The individual honor followed a year later. At the 2011 Writers Guild Awards, “The Chrysanthemum and the Sword” won the WGA Award for Best Episodic Drama, and Mad Men again won Best Drama Series — two wins for Levy in one night, as USC’s news report noted. The episodic prize is voted on by fellow writers, so it carries particular weight: the people who do the same job judged this script among the year’s best.

Counterpart and Life After Mad Men

After Mad Men ended in 2015, Levy is credited as a writer on Counterpart, the Starz science-fiction spy thriller (2017–2019) built around parallel worlds. It was a very different assignment from a 1960s period drama: instead of reconstructing Madison Avenue, its writers had to build the rules of two diverging worlds and keep them consistent.

Public information about her work since Counterpart is thin: no widely reported interviews or new showrunning announcements appear in the sources reviewed here. That is normal for staff writers, whose names live in credits rather than headlines, and it is not evidence she has stopped working.

Her Father, Lawrence H. Levy

Erin Levy’s father is himself a notable figure in American television. Lawrence H. Levy, born in Brooklyn and raised in New York City, wrote for Seinfeld, Roseanne, Family Ties, Saved by the Bell, Who’s the Boss?, The Facts of Life, and The Love Boat, among others. He won a Writers Guild Award for the Seinfeld episode “The Mango” and received two Emmy nominations.

Later he traded the writers’ room for nineteenth-century Brooklyn, becoming the author of the Mary Handley mystery novels, beginning with Second Street Station (2015), about a real-life early female detective, and teaching screenwriting at Loyola Marymount University. Both father and daughter entered television writing young and both won Writers Guild Awards — talent passed down, then proven independently, as in profiles such as Desiree Gabrielle Dennis-Dylan.

What Is Not Publicly Known

Honesty about gaps matters. Her exact date of birth and age have not been reliably published, so no birth year is given here, and the same caution applies to her net worth, marital status, and family life: figures on low-quality biography sites are guesses, not facts. A complete filmography beyond the four Mad Men episodes named above is likewise not reliably available, so this article does not invent one.

Why Her Career Matters

Levy’s career shows how prestige television actually gets made: not by a lone genius, but by a room of writers under a strong showrunner, with assistants earning their way to full credits. Her path — seminar, degree, assistant’s chair, staff writer, award-winning episode — is the route writing programs still teach, because it works.

It is also a corrective to how television history is usually told. People remember Mad Men for Matthew Weiner, Jon Hamm, and the costumes; remembering writers like Levy restores the collaborative truth that the show’s voice was built by many hands. Readers interested in that discipline may also enjoy the profiles of Delores Nowzaradan and Donna Sicuranza, where documented work is likewise separated from rumor.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Erin Levy?
An American television writer best known for Mad Men, where she rose from writing assistant to staff writer and won an Emmy and Writers Guild Awards, and for later writing on Starz’s Counterpart.

Which Mad Men episodes did Erin Levy write?
“Shut the Door. Have a Seat” (season 3 finale, 2009, co-written with Matthew Weiner), “The Chrysanthemum and the Sword” (season 4, episode 5, 2010), “Chinese Wall” (season 4, episode 11, 2010), and “To Have and to Hold” (season 6, episode 4, 2013).

Did Erin Levy win an Emmy?
Yes. In 2010 she shared in an Emmy Award for Mad Men, and won Writers Guild Awards for the show in 2010 (Best Drama Series, shared with the staff) and 2011 (Best Episodic Drama for “The Chrysanthemum and the Sword”).

Is Erin Levy related to Lawrence H. Levy?
Yes. Lawrence H. Levy, veteran writer of Seinfeld and other hit shows and later author of the Mary Handley mysteries, is her father. A USC screenwriting seminar in high school sparked her interest in following him.

Faizi is a content writer at AllAboutFacts (hotteamnames.com), covering vocabulary, language tips, and everyday explainers.