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Melissa Blake is a television writer-producer who has worked on one-hour dramas and half-hour single-camera comedies for broadcast television and digital platforms over the past two decades.
Upon receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in screenwriting from Loyola Marymount University, Melissa got her foot in the door as an assistant in television post-production. She soon parlayed her post-production gigs into an executive assistant position at Renaissance Pictures, the former production company of producer Rob Tapert and producer-director Sam Raimi, where Melissa began writing for the company’s syndicated action-adventure shows, including Jack of All Trades, Cleopatra: 2525, and cult hit, Xena: Warrior Princess. Melissa then teamed up with her sister, Joy Blake, and together the pair staffed on several series including Kevin Hill (UPN), Night Stalker (ABC), Heroes (NBC), Ghost Whisperer (CBS), and Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior (CBS).
During a hiatus from writing in 2011, Melissa started teaching in the Graduate Writing for the Screen and Writing & Producing for Television programs for LMU’s School of Film and Television. Inspired by the creative energy of the grad students, she resumed her solo writing career on the FOX series, Sleepy Hollow. Since then, she has worked on ABC’s Wicked City and Amazon’s One Mississippi, comedian Tig Notaro’s autobiographical scripted series. All the while, Melissa has continued her collaboration with LMU, in the form of special workshops, panels, and a mentoring program, through which she pairs third-year MFA candidates with working writers as they transition from film school to the industry.
Most recently, in addition to developing her own projects, Melissa served as Co-Executive Producer on the first season of Netflix’s upcoming genre series October Faction and is currently Co-EP on Amazon’s new YA show, The Wilds.