About Me
Rooted in Curiosity & Creative Instinct
I’m Maya Raines, a screenwriter, producer, director, and multidisciplinary creative drawn to messy people, uncomfortable truths, social justice, and the absurdity of trying to get your life together.
My stories explore life, humanity, womanhood, queerness, mental health, and the search for softness in a world that rarely makes room for it. Comedy is my favorite way in. Life is depressing enough; I want to make you laugh, then give you something to sit with.
Growing up in Northern Virginia, I wrote and illustrated novellas, assembled Punky-Brewster-level outfits, and documented life with a small purple camera. I was building worlds before I knew I could make a career of it.
Education, Craft & Storytelling Practice
Spelman College
Class of 2027
Now, I’m a senior studying Documentary Filmmaking at Spelman College, Class of 2027, bringing documentary’s attention to real people and lived experience into my scripted work.
That work has taken me from student sets to Beverly Hills, where I spent summer 2026 as a Spike Fellow at Gersh in Motion Picture Literary. My short documentary When We Film earned me a Southeastern Emmy® Scholarship.
I also brought a fresh voice to the 2025 Sheen Magazine Awards Show, reworking the script and sharpening its comedy with sharp jokes and a younger perspective for new audiences.
My experience also includes archival research for 371 Productions’ Peabody-nominated PBS documentary American Coup: Wilmington 1898 and production work on LEGO’s Stranger Things Season 5 commercial. Through the NYU Tisch × Black Women Film Network Creative Futures pilot program, I wrote and directed After the Fall, learning from NYU Tisch deans and Emmy-winning and nominated industry professionals.
Leadership, Industry Experience & Community Impact
At Spelman, I co-founded Writers’ Room and led an 80+ person cast and crew on the four-part web series The Self We Seek. I’m now producing Work-Study, a half-hour comedy pilot set in an HBCU financial aid office, as its creator, showrunner, writer, and director.
Access matters to me beyond the screen, too. Through The Scholarship Gal, I share the strategies that helped me earn over $160,000 in external scholarships, helping other students find room to pursue their own ambitions.
I’m building toward a career writing, producing, and directing television with the long-term goal of becoming a showrunner who writes stories that let people be contradictory, ridiculous, tender, and fully human.