Women Behind the Scenes Spotlight: Wendy Mericle

Photo Credit: TV Guide

Today’s Women Behind the Scenes spotlight is shone on writer and executive producer Wendy Mericle.

While Wendy has had her share of successes on the small screen, she actually started out living without a television, as her parents took it away when she was 5-years-old. She has shared that they wanted her “to go play outside and read books.”

This background made working in the television industry quite a challenge for her; in fact, she has stated, “It still is. It’s one of those weird things where people will reference things…but there is no baseline for me.” She know movies pretty well and has a strong background in literature, both of which have served her well. Over time she has tried to watch at least one episode of everything she has missed so she can have some sense of (pop culture) and have a source of reference.

Her first job in the industry was working as an assistant to John Eisendrath during the final season of Beverly Hills, 90210 in 2000. The following year she worked as an assistant to executive producer Robin Schiff in the short-lived The WB series Grosse Pointe.

A few seasons later, she joined the writing staff of Everwood, where she first worked with uber-executive producer and series creator Greg Berlanti [who she would work with again – but more on that shortly]. She was a writer on the short-lived series Jack & Bobby in 2005 and was part of the writing staff on Smallville in 2006 and Ghost Whisperer in 2007.

In 2008, Wendy was a story editor and writer on the cult favorite series Eli Stone [which was created by Greg Berlanti.] Over the course of the next few seasons, she worked on the short-lived drama Eastwick as an executive story editor and as a writer and executive story editor on Desperate Housewives.

In 2012, she joined the writing staff of Arrow where she has served as co-producer, producer and co-executive producer before taking on the role of executive producer in 2015. As of last month, she will collaborate with Greg Berlanti on a pilot for FOX based on the classic series Kung Fu.

Fans and viewers can follow Wendy Mericle on Twitter @MericlesHappen.