Cirrus@Austlit

Film and television script-writer.

Blake Ayshford studied playwriting at the University of Technology, Sydney, and starting writing for television with scripts for Home and away in 1988.

However, his best-known works have come in the last decade. Between 2004 and 2006, he wrote a succession of scripts for such programs as The Cooks (2004-2005), The Alice (2005), Love My Way (2006), and McLeod's Daughters (2005-2006). One of his scripts for The Cooks won the Queensland Premier's Literary Award (for television).

Between 2006 and 2009, Ayshford wrote for long-running hospital drama All Saints, a script-writing stint that he followed with work on My Place (2009), Crownies (2011), and The Straits (2012). One of his scripts for The Straits was nominated for the Queensland Literary Awards.

Ayshford adapted An Accidental Soldier (broadcast in 2013), based on the Miles Franklin Award-nominated book Silent Parts by John Charalambous, produced by Kylie du Fresne (producer of The Sapphires and Lockie Leonard) and directed by Rachel Ward.

In 2018, Ayshford had success in the UK with episodes of the Welsh-set supernatural thriller Requiem, created and largely written by fellow Australian Kris Mrksa. He followed this with the adaptation of British novelist Louise Doughty's thriller Whatever You Love, set to star David Morrissey. 2018 also saw the release of Ayshford's Fighting Season, following the return of Australian soldiers from Afghanistan.

His work as a script editor includes All Saints (2006-2009), the film Restraint (2009), and the television series I Rock (2010).