Dis not th' Nox. [...] Marti [...] and I shaped this year very carefully, and while we made mistakes (as we do every year), we made our show. We explored what we wanted to, said what we meant. You don't have to like it, but don't think it comes from neglect.
— Joss Whedon, UPN Bronze VIP Archive for May 22, 2002
Noxon graduated from Oakes College at the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1987 with a B.A. in Theater Arts.
In 1997, Noxon joined the writing staff of Buffy the Vampire Slayer for its second season. During her tenure there, she wrote or co-wrote 22 episodes of the series, half of these during her first two years on the show. Noxon described her experience on Buffy as charmed, as The WB allowed the show creators to work with little interference. The pace of the writing was extremely fast, with deadlines from 3 weeks to sometimes 4 days.
In 1998, beginning with its third season, Noxon became a co-producer of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In 1999, upon the beginning of Buffy spin-off Angel, Noxon was promoted by series creator Joss Whedon to supervising Producer for its fourth season, which gave her increasing charge of producing Buffy. During this season, Noxon cast Amber Benson as Tara Maclay.
In 1999, Noxon co-wrote Just a Little Harmless Sex with Roger Mills.
Noxon co-produced the show over its fifth season (2000–2001) with fellow executive co-producer David Fury, as well as direct two episodes ("Into the Woods" and "Forever"). At the 6th season's conclusion, fan reaction was mixed, leading some to criticize Whedon for abandoning creative control and stewardship of Buffy to Noxon. In response, Whedon said:
Noxon was executive Producer of Buffy between 2001 and 2003, for its sixth and seventh seasons.
In 2004, Noxon wrote and produced a pilot entitled Still Life for Fox about a family recovering from the death of their son, a police officer. Despite being picked up to series the show has never been aired in the U.S as FOX cancelled the show after seven episodes were produced, due to the subject matter.
In January 2005, Noxon co-created the supernatural drama Point Pleasant with John McLaughlin. Despite an initial strong following, viewership dropped dramatically, and only 11 of the 13 filmed episodes were aired on Fox. In the fall of 2005, halfway through its first season, Noxon left Prison Break, where she had been a consulting Producer. She said she wasn't connecting with the material and the vision of the writer's room.
In April 2006, Noxon joined the ABC drama Brothers & Sisters as showrunner. Four months later, she left the show. Press cited creative differences with creator Jon Robin Baitz, but he acknowledged differing visions and being new to the process of creating scripted television, said he was struggling with the practicalities of working on his first TV show. Greg Berlanti, Baitz' friend, stepped in to help out. In September 2006, Noxon joined the ABC medical drama Grey's Anatomy for its third season, as consulting Producer. In February 2007, Noxon co-wrote the third-season Grey's Anatomy episode "Some Kind of Miracle" with series creator Shonda Rhimes.
In 2008, Noxon worked as a consulting Producer on the AMC drama series Mad Men. Noxon said that working with Matthew Weiner was a dream, that it took her writing to a whole different level, and that with feedback from Weiner, was able to break herself of some habits that became ingrained after working on different shows for a while, like focusing on the theme of the show, etc. With Weiner on Mad Men, Noxon said she was able to re-connect with the purpose of writing better, and become more connected to what she was writing about. In 2008, Noxon co-wrote a second-season episode of the AMC drama series Mad Men, "The Inheritance", for which she was nominated for a 2009 Writers Guild of America Award for Best Dramatic Series. She won the WGA Award for Best Drama Series (after being nominated for the second consecutive year) at the February 2010 ceremony for her work on the third season of Mad Men.
She wrote the screenplay of the 2011 remake of Fright Night, directed by Craig Gillespie.
In 2014, Noxon, along with co-creator Sarah Gertrude Shapiro, began working on the Lifetime comedy-drama series UnREAL. While working on UnREAL, Noxon is also working on Bravo's first original scripted TV series Girlfriends' Guide to Divorce. Noxon is also one of the executive producers of the CBS medical drama series Code Black which premiered in the fall of 2015.
She wrote and directed the 2017 film To the Bone.
