Faculty & Staff

Josh Wood

Josh Wood

Director, Creative Writing Conservatory

Teaches: Core Classes, Comedy Writing Workshop, Irish Literature, Performance Poetry

josh.wood@ocsarts.net

Mr. Josh Wood holds a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing and a Master of Arts in English, both from Chapman University, and a bachelor’s degree in literature with a creative writing emphasis from Sonoma State University. As the Creative Writing Conservatory Director, Mr. Wood teaches a variety of fiction and poetry workshops and advises the conservatory’s award-winning art and literary journal, Inkblot

Mr. Wood is a recipient of a John Fowles Center for Fiction Award and a finalist for Glimmer Train’s Short Story Award for New Writers, The North American Review's James Hearst Poetry Prize, and the Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry. Mr. Wood’s writing appears in Volt, DIAGRAM, SpiralOrb, The Berkeley Poetry Review, OccuPoetry, and many additional publications. Previously, he was an editor for Dirtcakes, a journal dedicated to exploring themes suggested by the United Nations Millennium Development Goals to end extreme poverty. Mr. Wood is dedicated to educating his students to express themselves with clarity, creativity, and purpose through the study of diverse genres, styles, and writers.

Read More
Tim Powers

Tim Powers

Master Teacher

Teaches: Novel Workshop, Origins and Sources of Fiction, Poetry Workshop, Science Fiction Writing, Supernatural Writing

tim.powers@ocsarts.net

Mr. Tim Powers is one of the founders of the Creative Writing Conservatory. His lifetime of exotic knowledge is dispensed in a number of ever-popular courses. He is the author of more than a dozen novels, translated into more than 20 languages. Along with his lifelong creative collaborator James P. Blaylock, the former Creative Writing Conservatory director, Mr. Powers is an originator of the Steampunk genre, and he has been featured widely in discussion of it.

He is a three-time World Fantasy Award Winner, two-time recipient of the Philip K. Dick Memorial Award, and a Prix Apollo Award Winner (France). His novel, On Stranger Tides, is the literary basis of the Pirates of the Caribbean film franchise. 

Read More
Andrew Beckner

Andrew Beckner

Instructor

andrew.beckner@ocsarts.net

Mr. Andrew Beckner is a writer from central Indiana. He has published fiction, non-fiction, and prose poetry. Mr. Beckner’s work has most recently appeared in or is forthcoming from Chicago Quarterly Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, LandLocked, and Red Wheelbarrow, among others. He lives in Southern California, where he teaches composition and creative writing.

Karen Blackstone

Karen Blackstone

Instructor

Teaches: Confessional Poets, Goth Girls, Nerd Lit., Psychology for Writers, The Romantic Poets, Young Adult Fiction

karen.blackstone@ocsarts.net

Ms. Karen Blackstone holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Chapman University and a master’s degree in English and comparative literature from California State University, Fullerton. She is a Fellow of the University of California, Irvine Writing Project and a frequent presenter with the Orange County Reading Association.  

Her writing has appeared in the Orange County Register and the LA Times. In addition to teaching at Orange County School of the Arts, Ms. Blackstone has taught writing for more than 25 years at Chapman University, California State University, Fullerton, Fullerton College, and University of California, Irvine. 

Read More
Mike Bradecich

Mike Bradecich

Instructor

mike.bradecich@ocsarts.net

Mr. Mike Bradecich started teaching On-Camera Acting at OCSA in the Spring of 2020 and was immediately hooked. Since then, he's also started teaching Sketch Comedy and TV Pilot Writing. Mr. Bradecich got his start as an actor and writer doing improv in Chicago, which led to some television show roles and a ton of commercials. He has two kids at OCSA, and in his free time he mostly likes to hang out with them, their youngest sibling, and his partner. Mr. Bradecich also works as a freelance animator, and you can see some of his work on Instagram @badradishmotion.

Adriana Campoy

Adriana Campoy

Instructor

adriana.campoy@ocsarts.net

Ms. Adriana Campoy holds a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of California, Berkeley, a Masters of Fine Arts in creative writing from the University of Washington in Seattle, and an MPhil in Medieval and Renaissance Literature from the University of Cambridge. Her poems have been published in the Berkeley Poetry Review, Genre: International and Interdisciplinary Journal of Literature and the Arts, and the Sun Star Review. Ms. Campoy was a recipient of the 2014-2015 Cornish Playhouse Arts Incubator Residency in Seattle, where she collaborated with professional ballet dancer Charles McCall, from the Pacific Northwest Ballet and Royal New Zealand Ballet, on The Changeling Project, a multimedia performance integrating dance and poetry. In 2014, she and director Marc Katz co-wrote the short film People Are Becoming Clouds, an adaptation of a story by Joe Meno. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2015.

Melinda J. Combs

Melinda J. Combs

Instructor

melinda.combs@ocsarts.net

Ms. Melinda J. Combs earned her Master of Arts and Master of Fine Arts from Chapman University. With former Disney executive, Jack Lindquist, Ms. Combs co-authored In Service to the Mouse, the business memoir which chronicles Mr. Lindquist’s 38 years with The Walt Disney Company. Some of her essays have appeared in Women’s Best Friend: Women Writers on the Dogs in Their Lives; Far From Home: Father-Daughter Travel Anthology; and Cat Women: Female Writers on their Feline. The first chapter of her memoir-in-progress won second place in a contest put on by Oregon Writer’s Colony. Ms. Combs’s fiction has appeared in Gargoyle, Barely South Review and other journals.

Ian Frost

Ian Frost

Instructor

ian.frost@ocsarts.net

Mr. Ian Frost is an OCSA Creative Writing alumnus specializing in all things nerd. He holds a degree in cinema and television arts from California State University, Fullerton and currently teaches Comic Book Writing, Worldbuilding, and Roleplay Storytelling. Mr. Frost has worked for DC Comics, but feels most at home at the head of a gaming table. You can find his work at Chance Encounters RPG, where he writes, runs, and edits an original tabletop roleplaying series.

Derrick Ortega

Derrick Ortega

Instructor

derrick.ortega@ocsarts.net

Mr. Derrick Ortega received a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing & writing for the performing arts from University of California, Riverside and a bachelor's degree in creative writing from Chapman University. Mr. Ortega writes fiction as well as poetry, and his work is rooted in the space of reentering society, especially after experiencing trauma. His poetry has appeared in Letter [r] Press, Fact-Simile Editions, and elsewhere. He has taught courses in Speculative Literature, Sci-Fi & Time Travel, and The Lost Generation.

Tira Palmquist

Tira Palmquist

Instructor

Teaches: All Playwriting-Related Courses, Women in Science Fiction, Zombie Literature

tira.palmquist@ocsarts.net

Ms. Tira Palmquist plays include Two Degrees, Ten Mile Lake (Serenbe Playhouse), Age of Bees (MadLab Theater, Tesseract), And Then They Fell, and others, all of which have been featured at numerous festivals, including the New American Voices festival in the United Kingdom, the Caltech 2014 Mach 33 Festival, the 2014 Great Plains Theater Conference, and the Denver Center’s New Play Summit 2016. Her work has been developed by Seven Devils, Inkwell, 9Thirty Theater, The Road Theater, EST-LA, and the Theatricum Botanicum Seedlings program. 

Ms. Palmquist is the Creative Writing Conservatory’s dramaturge. She supervises the student writers in our One Act Play Festival, hosted in conjunction with the Acting and Production & Design Conservatories.

Read More
Missie Riojas

Missie Riojas

Instructor

missie.riojas@ocsarts.onmicrosoft.com

Ms. Missie Riojas started her career on stage working with her family in a musical variety show like a Partridge, but secretly longed to be a Brady. As an adult, she became an early childhood educator who specialized in drama and theater. After spending some time in the film and television industry as a writer, director, producer, and performer, Ms. Riojas earned her Bachelor of Arts in English and theater arts, and a Master of Arts in educational research and curriculum design. Her diverse background in the performing arts and her love of teaching finally led her to the perfect home at OCSA in 2012 when her son became a student in the Creative Writing Conservatory. She’s happily been here ever since!

Dawn Nguyen Spranger

Dawn Nguyen Spranger

Instructor

Teaches: Film Aesthetics, Intro to Screenwriting, Community Arts, and TV Writing

dawn.spranger@ocsarts.net

Ms. Dawn Nguyen Spranger holds a bachelor’s degree in film and television from Chapman University. During her last year at Chapman, she was offered a position at Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City, California in their post-production department. Ms. Spranger worked there for several years before deciding to stay home full-time to raise her children. During her time at home with her children, she was a substitute teacher at several public and private schools. In 2008, Ms. Spranger went back to school to earn her teaching credential at Azusa Pacific University. Since 2010, she has taught middle school Language Arts and Social Studies. Ms. Spranger joined Orange County School of the Arts in 2016. She is a Specialized Academic Instruction Paraeducator in the Special Services Department and serves as an instructor in the Integrated Arts and Creative Writing conservatories.

Advisory Board

Jim Blaylock

Jim Blaylock

MFA Director

Chapman University

James P. Blaylock is a professor at Chapman University and is currently the MFA program director for the graduate program in creative writing. In 2000, he developed the Creative Writing Conservatory at the Orange County School of the Arts and directed the conservatory for the following 13 years.

In 2012, he received the U.S. Presidential Scholars Program Teacher Recognition Award in Washington D.C. Mr. Blaylock’s short stories, novels, and collections have been published around the world, and he is also a two-time winner of the World Fantasy Award. He was one of the literary pioneers of the Steampunk movement, along with Tim Powers and K.W. Jeter. His short story “Unidentified Objects” was nominated for an O. Henry Award in 1990. Despite his close association with Steampunk, most of his work is contemporary, realistic fantasy set in southern California. In April, 2016, his novel The Rainy Season was chosen by Orange Coast Magazine as one of the ten quintessential Orange County novels.

“In my 40 years of teaching creative writing and directing creative writing programs, my thirteen years of directing the Creative Writing Conservatory at OCSA was simply the most productive, energizing, engaging teaching that I've had the pleasure to do.  The conservatory does stellar work, and the students are as good as they get.”

Read More
Jamie-Lee Josselyn

Jamie-Lee Josselyn

Recruiter

University of Pennsylvania, Writer’s House

   

Patty Seyburn

Patty Seyburn

Professor of Poetry

California State University, Long Beach

Patty Seyburn’s fourth collection of poems, Perfecta, was published by What Books Press in the fall of 2014. Her third book, Hilarity, won the Green Rose Prize given by New Issues Press (Western Michigan University, 2009). Her two previous books of poems are Mechanical Cluster (Ohio State University Press, 2002) and Diasporadic (Helicon Nine Editions, 1998), which won the 1997 Marianne Moore Poetry Prize and the American Library Association’s Notable Book Award for 2000. Her work has appeared in numerous anthologies, most recently The Bloomsbury Anthology of Contemporary Jewish American Poetry, Poetry in Michigan/Michigan in Poetry, and Irresistible Sonnets. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals including The Paris Review, Poetry, New England Review, Field, Slate, Crazyhorse, Cutbank, Quarterly West, and Boston Review.

She won a 2011 Pushcart Prize for her poem, “The Case for Free Will,” published in Arroyo Literary Review. Seyburn grew up in Detroit, MI. She earned a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University, an MFA in Poetry from University of California, Irvine, and a doctoral degree in poetry and literature from the University of Houston. She is an associate professor at California State University, Long Beach and co-editor of POOL: A Journal of Poetry, (www.poolpoetry.com).

“The Creative Writing Conservatory at OCSA does a brilliant job of creating an environment where the imagination soars, personal expression becomes transformed into art, and the voice of the individual is encouraged, crafted, nurtured, and heard.”

Read More