Pacifica Stories

Pacifica is grateful to have Melanie Hughes serving as our Assistant Director of Marketing – Content & Engagement, where she brings a storyteller’s eye and a deep love for community to campus life.

Melanie’s journey to Pacifica has woven together creativity, faith, and adventure. She earned her Bachelor’s degree in English – Creative Writing at Auburn University, serving as a campus photographer and editor for two literary magazines, before completing her MFA in Screenwriting at Boston University. After graduate school, she moved to Los Angeles to pursue film, working for production companies and in the writers’ room of the ABC/Hulu series The Company You Keep. She later worked on an independent film, produced a short film, and developed a coming-of-age feature script that is now being shopped with a producer.

During the writers’ strike, she pivoted into marketing and learning development with the New Zealand-based company FRAMECAD, creating e-learning courses and interviewing clients for magazine features. Through every chapter, one thread has remained constant: she is always writing—scripts, prose, poetry—and always paying attention to the stories unfolding around her.

At the heart of her education was community. Early in college, older students discipled her and showed her that deep faith and vibrant joy are not opposites, but companions. Higher education cultivated in her a love of curiosity: listening humbly, speaking with conviction, and having the courage to change your mind. “My problem was never finding something interesting,” she reflects, “but figuring out how to choose between a million fascinating possibilities.” She hopes to remain a lifelong learner, continually surprised by the depth and nuance of the world.

Her faith is intrinsic to all she does. Having worked in creative spaces filled with people from many different backgrounds and beliefs, Melanie values thoughtful dialogue and genuine friendship. She strives to be a peaceful, encouraging presence who listens well, sees people clearly, and responds with love.

Originally from Atlanta, Georgia, Melanie grew up with an adventurous sailor father and an introspective, artistic mother. Travel and rich conversation shaped her childhood and continue to shape her today. She has studied abroad in Edinburgh at the School of Divinity, taught English in Inner Mongolia, worked on an agriturismo in a medieval Italian village, backpacked solo through Eastern Europe, and attended a writers’ retreat in the Scottish Highlands. In all of these experiences, she has found that even in solitude she is never alone, often sensing God’s presence in quiet cobblestone streets, open to whatever surprise might be around the corner.

At Pacifica, Melanie loves working in a learning environment filled with possibility. She believes high school is a formative season, a time when students are discovering who they are while still open to guidance. Her hope is that they leave empowered to be themselves: curious, courageous, challenged, encouraged, and even a little weird, trusting that their faith and relationships are being shaped in meaningful ways.

Outside of campus, you might find her rock climbing, reading, surfing, hiking, or sitting on the living room floor with her community. 

We’re grateful for the creativity, thoughtfulness, and joy Melanie brings to Pacifica, and for the many stories still to be told.