- Height5′ 2″ (1.57 m)
- Tanya M. Wheeler says she feels like she has lived two lives. The one before she discovered screenwriting as a passion, and the life lived after.
The Before Life included marriage, motherhood, and teaching. Tanya Wheeler was married for thirteen years and is now divorced. Her many years lived overseas in the Philippines, New Zealand, Australia and England, were spent travelling, teaching, learning, and growing as a person. Now, all of that life experience is grist for the writing mill, allowing the prolific screenwriter to produce ideas for feature films and TV series.
Pursuing a screenwriting career from New Zealand has not always been easy, but Tanya credits technology with her ability to work with producers in London, Singapore, Sydney, Los Angeles and Wellington without too much difficulty. Nowhere is more than 24 hours' flight away, so work becomes a way to rack up the air miles, while maintaining the day-to-day lifestyle of New Zealand for the children.
[2016] November - Tanya attended the NZ Web Festival 2017 as a finalist with her Children's Sci Fi Web Series, Reset (2016). Reset was launched at the Wairoa Maori Film Festival in June 2016 and launched on the CyberSmarties platform in Ireland in January 2017. Tanya headed to Cannes as one of six international finalists in the MipTV Digital Short Form Content for Children Competition with Reset (2016) in March 2017. Meeting with commissioners from Disney and the BBC and others at MipTV 2017.
[2019] - Tanya wins Best Script, Best Play, and the one woman show wins Best Actress at Short + Sweet Auckland 2019 with the short stage-play, 'It Happens to a Lot of People' about a still birth.
[2019] - Tanya's short film screenplay, 'The Middle Wife' is runner up in the Short Screenplay Competition at the New Orleans Film Festival 2019.
[2019] November - Tanya attended the Melbourne International Film Festival in 2019 and the Power Of Inclusion WIFT Summit in Auckland in 2019, and the SPADA conference in Auckland 2019 as an emerging producer.
- IMDb mini biography by: S. B. 2012 - In November 2020, Tanya M. Wheeler became a first-time director when she directed her short horror film Means to an End. The short film was completed in May 2022. In February 2022, Tanya M. Wheeler directed a music video for the band Shady Brain Farm. The music video is for the song, Orange to Red and was released in May 2022.
- IMDb mini biography by: Sarah B.
- SpouseAntony Lawler(December 18, 1998 - October 13, 2011) (divorced, 2 children)
- Gender / Gender identityFemale
- Pronounsshe/her
- Sexual orientationStraight
- Tanya's TV series, James & Co., was dedicated to her grandmother, Iris Heays who died the day Tanya finished writing the pilot script.
- Tanya's feature film adaptation of Australian novel, Whispering in the Wind by Alan Marshall, titled The Last Beautiful Princess, is dedicated to her nephew, Liam Wheeler, who was born the same day the script was started. Liam was born with a problem with his foot, and had to wear a leg brace, much like Alan Marshall who famously had polio and wrote the autobiographical, I Can Jump Puddles, about his childhood spent in leg braces.
- Son, Griffin Lawler, was born in September 2006.
- Tanya credits American actress, Lin Shaye, with inspiring her to pursue screenwriting as a career and not just a hobby.
- The idea for Tanya's feature, Husband Boot Camp, came to her while unloading the dishwasher in her kitchen. She credits housework with many of her movie ideas, as she says the monotony provides opportunities for thinking.
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