Melina Sempill Watts

Melina Sempill Watts’ first novel Tree won best new fiction at Beverly Hills Book Awards last year, while her first book event was at Los Angeles Times Book Festival. Her writing appears in such venues as the New York Times motherlode blog Earth Island Journal, Sierra Magazine and elsewhere.

Watts began her career in Hollywood as a development executive, writing consultant and story analyst working for such luminaries Frank Marshall, Kathleen Kennedy and Peter Horton and at DreamWorks.

Watts has worked in conservation for such clients as The Bay Foundation, Heal the Bay, UCLA Extension, Malibu Boys and Girls Club (pro bono,) G3, Green Gardens Group, North State Public Radio (pro bono) Fall River Resource Conservation District, Friends of Butte Creek and New Consensus, a non-profit focusing on New Green Deal. She completed a USDA-NRCS contract for the Glenn County Resource Conservation District. She is a Watershed Coordinator in Los Angeles County.

Watts is at work on her second novel.