Director of Creative Writing Jim Blaylock, says, “What has been most encouraging is that the students themselves have transformed the program.  Willing and imaginative students provide all the energy.”

The genres of the classes are as diverse as the students.  Favorites include song writing, a literary magazine produced six times each year, women’s fiction, advanced scriptwriting, and a poetry class taught by Los Angeles Times best-selling author Tim Powers.  Currently under consideration are classes in writing comedy sketches, the philosophic novel, and Insects in Film and Fiction.

Jim Blaylock, Director of Creative Writing
Jim Blaylock, director of the OCHSA Creative Writing Conservatory has written 14 published novels and about 50 short stories, novellas, and essays, including his most recent collection of short stories, Thirteen Phantasms. His novels and short stories have been published in translation in 15 foreign countries. He was twice winner of the World Fantasy Award; his novel Homunculus won the Philip K. Dick Memorial Award; and he was nominated for the O. Henry Award in 1990 for his short story "Unidentified Objects". Blaylock has been a professional writer and teacher for 25 years, having started teaching at Fullerton Community College in 1976, the same year that his first short story appeared in print. Since then he has taught composition, literature, and creative writing at Cal State Fullerton, Redlands University, U.C. Irvine, and Chapman University before developing the Creative Writing program at OCHSA

Tim Powers is the author of over a dozen novels and scores of articles and short stories. His work has been translated into more than twenty foreign languages including such far-flung languages as Finnish and Serbo-Croatian. Winner of the coveted Prix Apollo Literary Award in France, he was described by the Manchester Guardian as “the best fantasy writer to come along in a decade.” Powers has had a wide range of teaching experiences, most notably at the Clarion Writers Workshop at the University of Michigan. He has taught creative writing courses at Redlands University, Cal State San Bernardino, U.C. Riverside, and Cal State Fullerton. His most recent novel, Declare, appeared on the Los Angeles Times Bestseller List.

John Blaylock graduated from Chapman University with a degree in literature with a teaching emphasis. He took a leave of absence in his sophomore year to tour with Sesame Street Live as Professor Art, playing venues around the United States including two weeks in Madison Square Garden. He has also written a number of musical comedies – book, music and lyrics – including “The Adventures of the Big, Bad Wolf,” “Wonderland,” “The Frog Prince,” and “A Christmas Show,” all of which have been staged at community theatres in the Orange County area. Over the past decade, Blaylock directed theatre productions at the Orange County Children’s Theatre, Broadway on Tour, The La Habra Depot Theatre, and the Costa Mesa Civic Theatre. He teaches a number of stage and literature-related classes.

Garrett Calcaterra is a writing instructor and freelance writer. In addition to teaching at the Orange County High School of the Arts, he has worked for the Orange Unified School District and taught composition at Chapman University. He received his bachelor of science degree in applied science from Pacific University and his master of fine arts degree in English from Chapman University. Calcaterra writes primarily fiction and screenplays and has an affinity for speculative fiction. His short stories have appeared in various magazines in the US and in a fiction anthology in the UK. He also does non-fiction freelance work for local Orange County businesses. His classes include Flash Fiction and the ever-popular Songwriting.

Jennifer Carr graduated from USC in 2001. She earned her master of fine arts from Chapman University in 2005 and has taught at the Orange County High School of the Arts since 2003. Carr has served on the faculty at Chapman University, The Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandise, and Westwood College. She has taught a variety of poetry-based classes, including World Poetry and Writing in Images. Her poem "Los Angeles Dusting" appears in the fall 2007 issue of The Connecticut Review.

Melinda J. Combs’ creative non-fiction has appeared in Cat Women: Female Writers on their Feline Friends; Women’s Best Friend: Women Writers on the Dogs in Their Lives; and Far From Home: Father-Daughter Travel Anthology. Her work has also appeared in Urban Dog, .ISM Quarterly, Salome Magazine and Cleansheets.com. While earning her master of arts and master of fine arts from Chapman University, Combs won first place in fiction and non-fiction for the university’s journal, Calliope. In addition to the Orange County High School of the Arts, she has taught at Chapman University, Irvine Valley College, and the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising.

Abbe Loomer was one of the first graduates of the Orange County High School of the Arts Creative Writing Conservatory. She went on to graduate from the prestigious University of Southern California Film School and holds her bachelor of fine arts in writing for screen and television. There, she served for two years as a student ambassador to the president of the university and was active in the USC Cinema Student Council. In her tenure at USC, Loomer made five short films, and wrote numerous short and feature length scripts. One of her feature length scripts was optioned to the Hallmark Channel upon graduating, and Ms. Loomer is currently working with the Hallmark Channel on rewrites. She was the first member of her graduating class to make such a sell. Loomer’s classes at the Orange County High School of the Arts include Screenwriting and Literature into Film. She has published work in several local magazines, including Orange Coast Magazine, and her playwriting has been featured at the Hunger Artist Theatre Company in Fullerton.

Tira Palmquist’s full-length scripts include Coyote Rising and Lost Nation, both of which have received staged readings across the country. Coyote Rising was produced as part of Coyote REP's 2007 Sound Plays and is available as a podcast at www.coyoterep.org. Lost Nation was named a finalist in the 2007 John Gassner New Play Festival and the Coe College Playwriting Festival, and will receive a staged reading in Interact Theatre Company’s Reading Series in May 2008. Her short play Breathing Water Instead of Air received the 1996 SIPFest Best Play award and was selected for the January 2007 DeLand Theatre Festival in DeLand, Florida. In November 2007, two of Palmquist’s short plays were produced as part of Hunger Artists’ Dead Letter Office II in Fullerton. Palmquist’s directing credits include several premiers in the Ohio area. Recently, she worked as head writer and director at The Chance Theatre of Anaheim on their Anaheim Home Companion and directed short pieces for Hunger Artists’ Beyond Convention and Dead Letter Office II. Palmquist also teaches writing at the University of California, Irvine.

Eric Tryon received his bachelor of arts in English from University of California, Santa Barbara and his master of arts in English and master of fine arts in creative writing from Chapman University. Tryon regularly teaches The Art of the Short Story, along with a number of publication and research classes. Mr. Tryon also teaches creative writing through UCI Extension, and English composition at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising. Tryon placed third in Glimmer Train’s semi-annual Family Matters competition in 2008. He has also appeared in The Wisconsin Review.

Joshua Wood was a finalist The North American Review James Hurst Poetry Prize in 2008. He has also been published in Working Class Review, Zaum, and ISM. Quarterly. He received the John Fowles Center for Creative Writing Award for Fiction at Chapman University in 2005, where he graduated with his master of fine arts / master of arts and has also taught. Wood’s classes at the Orange County High School of the Arts include Art of the Poet and Stand-Up Comedy. In 2007, he became faculty advisor to the award-winning, creative writing student-run magazine Inkblot. He has been teaching English, writing or related subjects in Orange County at the high school and/or college level since 2000. Prior to that, he served briefly as a staff writer at the Orange County Register. He earned his bachelor of arts at Sonoma State University.