Heather Taylor is a writer/ director originally from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada who splits her time between the US and Canada. She is a Canadian / UK / US citizen. Heather creates TV, film, and audio projects about messy, complicated family relationships, often told through a genre lens, that strive to destigmatize mental illness, disabilities, and poverty.

Heather recently staffed on the new rural-noir horror series REVIVAL for Syfy/ Peacock and wrote for season two of THE HARDY BOYS (Disney+/Hulu). She co-wrote two episodes, one of which earned her a nomination for a Writers’ Guild of Canada (WGC) Award. Her second feature film, LETHAL LOVE, is streaming on Netflix in the US, UK, and Australia.

Heather wrote and directed an episode of iHeart & Overtones Media’s narrative podcast YOU FEELING THIS which premiered at Tribeca Festival 2023 and co-wrote the scripted audiobook, KNOW YOUR NEWLYWED for Simon and Schuster (out Dec 2024). She is also the co-host of BRAAAINS, a podcast exploring the inner workings of our brains and how film and television portray them. As someone born with a non-visible disability, she hopes the conversations on BRAAAINS will help people in the entertainment industry (and beyond) look at mental health and disability representation in a new – and more informed – light.

She is a former journalist and ad(wo)man, an idea machine, the Indiana Jones of research, and builds supernatural worlds with real-world consequences. She is currently working with producers on several TV series that feature characters with mental health and neurodevelopmental disabilities. She hopes these projects will open the door for more voices and stories that need to be told.

There is room for all of us.

Heather’s background

Heather started her career as a playwright and poet, and is the author of three poetry collections. She taught writing to refugees, prisoners, pensioners, and students of all ages, and graduated with a Masters in Scriptwriting from City University, London. She is a 2022 RespectAbility Lab TV Writing Fellow, an alum of the Royal Court Theatre Young Writer’s Program, the Bell Media Prime Time TV program (in association with ABC Signature Studios), and the Corus Writer’s Apprentice Program. She was a finalist in the Austin Film Festival Screenplay Awards, and the PAGE Awards.

Other career highlights include: her first feature film script, ‘The Last Thakur’, which premiered at the London International Film Festival & had a cinematic, television, and DVD release in the UK; her sci-fi web series Raptured which had over a million views; and Stitched, her award-winning horror short, which played at festivals around the world.

Before becoming a full-time creator, Heather used her writing and directing talents in journalism, PR, and advertising for companies such as The Economist, BBC, and Ogilvy. As an advertising exec, she led multimillion-dollar campaigns across different industry sectors where she established her reputation as an idea machine, research-lover, and strategist.

Working in journalism, Heather honed her curiosity about the world and her interest in people with different perspectives. She has conducted hundreds of interviews and now applies that approach to her own projects and writers’ rooms. In aid of her work, Heather interviewed Air Force captains serving in Iraq, toured music venues with their owners, explored soon-to-be ghost towns with residents who have nowhere to go, visited hurricane-ravaged communities to speak to the survivors, and met with adult adoptees about their experiences growing up.