[3] Talen has written for the Village Voice, American Film and the Los Angeles Weekly, and was a contributing editor to Channels Magazine.
[citation needed] She assistant-edited an award-winning Merchant/Ivory documentary and worked as a researcher and assistant producer on the original reality series, Unsolved Mysteries.
[4] She has since written adaptations and original screenplays and worked with Gillian Armstrong, Paul Verhoeven and Robert Altman.
She shared credit on the 1996 Paramount film Harriet the Spy starring Rosie O'Donnell and directed by fellow New Yorker Bronwyn Hughes.
[5] Talen's directorial debut, Pretend, uses an array of multiple frames and graphics to tell the story of a troubled family living in upstate New York.