Spotlight: Women Behind the Scenes – Liz Tigelaar

Liz Tigelaar

In this new series of articles, I will be spotlighting women who work behind the scenes in the world of television and movies, who are deserving of some much needed attention.

For the inaugural article in this series, I am putting the focus on Executive Producer Liz Tigelaar, who is also a writer and producer as well as an author of young adult novels.

Liz got her start as a writer on the WB series Dawson’s Creek in 2000 and followed that up by working as an assistant to the Executive Producer on the short-lived series Once and Again in 2001 and 2002 and she worked as a writer and story editor on the NBC series American Dreams in 2002 and 2005.

Throughout 2006, she was the writer of the TV movie Split Decision and an associate producer on the box office movie Stick It as well as an executive story editor on the ABC Family channel series Kyle XY. In 2006 and 2007 she worked as a writer and producer on the ABC series What About Brian and also worked as a writer on the short-lived shows Side Order of Life on Lifetime and Dirty Sexy Money on ABC.

For the next few years she wore several different hats for the ABC series Brothers & Sisters, including producer, writer and supervising producer. In 2009, she was a writer and consulting producer on the remake of the FOX drama Melrose Place, which aired on the CW.

All of that work culminated in her becoming series creator, executive producer and writer on the fan-favorite CW series Life Unexpected, using her experience as an adopted child for creative influence on the series.

As mentioned, in addition to her working behind the scenes on television and movies, Liz is also an author of young adult books. Her first set of novels were Dawson’s Creek inspired books, including the following: Dawson’s Creek Mysteries Ominbus, Dawson’s Creek Files, Dawson’s Creek: Mysterious Boarder, Dawson’s Creek: Bayou Blues and Dawson’s Creek: Lighthouse Legend.

Those books were followed up by the TV-tie-in stories for American Dreams called American Dreams: End of Summer and American Dreams: Star Maps. She also has her own young adult books called Playing with the Boys and Pretty Tough. Liz’s books can be purchased at your local bookstore or through Amazon.

Life Unexpected can be seen on the CW on Tuesday nights at 9/8c.