Melissa Johnson is descended from antique dealers, grew up at flea markets, and some say was even born at a garage sale. She wants to be the goth Martha Stewart.

She has developed and produced television for clients such as The Colbert Report, The Disney Channel, Playhouse Disney, PBS, Nickelodeon, MTV, Vh-1, Comedy Central, Cartoon Network, A&E, Oxygen Media, BET, and Robert Smigel’s TV Funhouse/Saturday Night Live.

She is currently working on a book length memoir, Our Private Business, which she hopes is a Running With Scissors but you know...with arabs in Ohio.

Melissa’s a horror movie fanatic, a junk scavenger, and a lover of all things weird, creepy, and haunted.

She is married to puppeteer and director, Tim Lagasse. They currently live in Los Angeles (but miss New York). Together they like to travel, collect junk, and train their growing cat circus. In addition to toiling away on her book, Melissa has had the following jobs:

Joke and promo writer
Television development exec.
Writer of obituaries
Animation producer
Managing Editor for Slavic and Eastern European Performance
Road manager for the Berlin Philharmonic
Canadian sex researcher
Chief bean cook at an Ohio Taco Bell
School janitor
Budapest tour guide
Worker in a troll doll factory
PhD candidate in theatre history

…and she once nearly broke Baryshnikov's ankle during a rehearsal; he forgave her...sort of.

Melissa as Elvira on a pumpkin.  Carved by the talented and doting Tim Lagasse on their anniversary. — Melissa as Elvira on a pumpkin. Carved by the talented and doting Tim Lagasse on their anniversary.

Follow Melissa on twitter: @Mishavishamstea

Follow Miss Havisham's Curiosities on Pinterest and you'll find more inspiration than is contained here on this blog. Your black heart will simply burst.

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Come have tea.