Students

Current Graduate Students

	Miguel Aguilera is a fiction and poetry writer from South LA, where he was born and raised. His work often centers on socio-economic struggles, immigration, and masculinity. His debut poetry collection, "The House of Forgotten Sinners," published in 2015, marked the beginning of his journey as a writer and author. While Miguel’s journey began with writing, his passion for creative expression soon expanded into supporting local artists. This drive led him to co-found and perform at Apiary, Music and Arts, a curated event space in Compton, CA. Alongside his writing, Miguel works in audio production, which allows him to work and collaborate with fascinating people across different artistic disciplines. His creative endeavors reflect his deep connection to his community and his need to explore the challenges they face.
	Yahya Ashour \| يحيى عاشور is an exiled Gazan poet and an award-winning author. He was an honorary fellow in writing at the University of Iowa, an author-in-residence at UCLA, a visiting faculty member at Pitzer College, and he's the recipient of the 2026 Dean’s Distinguished Fellowship at UCR. His work appears in Poem-A-Day, Ploughshares, Michigan Quarterly Review, Mizna, and other journals and anthologies in several languages, including French and Spanish. His portfolio also includes three children's and young adult books in Arabic. He has received fellowships from Mizna Journal, the Hawthornden Foundation, and others. He headlined over 100 readings and events at organizations and universities across the states, including Harvard, Princeton, and Stanford.
	Ashley Alvarado (she/her) is an Inland Empire native. She studied Communication and Philosophy at the University of California, Santa Barbara, with both subjects greatly influencing her style and interests as a writer. While she primarily writes creative nonfiction, she enjoys engaging with different genres and expanding her comfort zone. Her work tends to focus on grief, memory and genealogy, the environmental issues facing her community, and her own lived experience as a young queer woman. When she isn’t writing, she enjoys playing video games, swimming, and spending time with her friends and family.
	Tessa Barone (she/her) is a fiction writer whose work explores the contradictions of human nature, the grotesque, fallibility, loneliness, and other peculiarities. She moved to the Inland Empire from Portland, Oregon, and has since learned there is apparently such a thing as a PNW accent. She earned dual BA honors degrees from Oregon State University; afterwards, she spent a few years working at bookshops and law firms. She is a recipient of the Abraham Polonsky Endowed Award.
	Nirit Ben Ari (Creative Nonfiction) is a writer, journalist, scholar, and educator. She holds a PhD in Political Science from the CUNY Graduate Center and has taught courses on politics and culture in the United States and Israel. She writes memoir, fiction, and essays. Themes of her work include intergenerational trauma, loss, and motherhood in the shadow of war. She firmly believes that bombing people is never the right way to achieve peace.
	Katy Berry is a New York-based comedian, writer, and filmmaker with a penchant for chaos. As a performer, she's terrorized the stages of prestigious universities and venues, including The Kennedy Center (pre-Trump) and multiple sold-out Edinburgh Fringe Fest runs. Her original writing and videos have been featured in Vulture, Studio360, Bustle, Chortle, Reductress, The Guardian, NYC Web Fest, Tootsie’s Video Vault, Coney Island Film Festival and more. Her screenplay POPCORN earned her a place in the 2020 Black List and Women in Film Feature Residency. As an educator, Katy was a Senior Instructor of Screenwriting at New York Film Academy and created the curriculum for Brooklyn Comedy Collective’s Musical Improv Program. She continues to teach improv at festivals and schools globally, and is currently developing a feature to direct in 2027.
	Muna Waxxing Crescent is a fairy creature who writes screenplays, films, and creates visual art. Her debut short film, BonniRabbit, is out on YouTube; it encapsulates Muna’s love for tight roping between opposing lines of whimsy and creep, comedy and horror, togetherness and individualism, external and internal harms. Muna’s work is in appreciative devotion to multimedia, handmade, anti-ai art. Her goal is to tell stories for both humans and creature-beans alike. When she's not screenwriting or filmmaking, Muna loves to explore, move her body, create through different mediums, and mother her very creative cat, Astrid, who, she hopes will one day get her MFA at UCR, too!
	Ania Epul is a writer from Boston, Massachusetts, a city to which she felt little attachment before moving across the country to study nonfiction in California. As it happens, her work often centers on these such existential musings—about what tethers a person amidst life’s absurdities. Her work has appeared in Eunoia Review and is hopefully forthcoming elsewhere. She enjoys going outside, rock climbing, and spending time with her sister and two cats.
	Johanna Keller Flores (she/her) is a Peruvian-American artist, born and raised on the Dakota Land of St. Paul, Minnesota. She is a writer, performer, administrator, puppeteer, teacher, and hard working Virgo. As a playwright she has written ANGELITA, Marixa y La Depre, Mal Ojo, and other plays and pieces. Johanna’s writing exists in the spaces where queerness, mixed Peruana identity, and generations of magic come together across time, reality and music. She is a 2025 MSAB Creative Individuals Grantee, a StorySeeds Screenwriting Fellow with Mamá Papaya, and a member of Exposed Brick Theater’s Playwriting Cohort. Johanna was also a 2023 LAMBDA Literary Playwriting Fellow, the 2022-2023 Many Voices Mentee at the Playwright's Center, a Teatro del Pueblo Visiones Fellow in 2023, a Q-Stage fellow in 2023 and an OurSpace Fellow with Twin Cities Media Alliance in 2021.
	Matt Harmon (he/they) is a playwright and musician who graduated from the University of Michigan with a BA in International Studies and a minor in Playwriting. His dramatic works explore how interpersonal relationships use music and culture to express the ineffable. He was a lifelong Michigander before moving to California, but will always stand up against Midwest slander. When Matt isn’t writing, he’s scouring record stores for an original pressing of Blondie’s Parallel Lines, bricking open layups on the basketball court, or tearing up the dancefloor at 2am.
	Sara Hovda is a transgender woman poet and online entertainer from rural Minnesota. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in magazines such as Frontier Poetry, Nimrod, and Nashville Review, among others. She writes about queerness, family, rural landscapes, and the places where those things interconnect. She is definitely better than you at video games.
	Kate Kugler is a writer, performer and storyteller of all stripes hailing from Washington, DC. She uses levity and high concepts to tackle the toughest bits of being human, like climate change, Alzheimer’s, and HOA boards. She was a 2023 Playwriting Fellow with Ammunition Theater, and a 2024 grant recipient from the Vital Projects Fund for her documentary film “Redemption”. Her short story “The Vegetarians” will be published in forthcoming anthology “Strange Gravity”. Kate has developed TV and film projects alongside companies including Amazon, Unapologetic Projects, Fable Entertainment, and Sobini Films. You can catch Kate being a silly guy in films like THE TOAST (premiering fall 2026) and SAVAGE SEASON (Hollyshorts), and a somewhat more serious guy in LAND OF GOLD (HBO) and INTERSECT (Hulu). Kate has a healthy relationship with her dad, and an unhealthy relationship with Shakespeare.
	Jamie Lam (she/her) is a screenwriter and director from Vancouver, BC. Her work has been screened at festivals including TIFF Next Wave, NFFTY, and streaming platforms including CBC Gem. She is an alumna of the VIFF Catalyst program and Pacific Screenwriting Program's Story Department Internship. Jamie strives to tell stories focused on fostering empathy and understanding, exploring the nuances of mental health from her Asian Canadian perspective. She is currently in post-production for her BC Arts Council funded short film, "Takeaways". In her free time, Jamie enjoys playing tennis, taking dance classes, and eating her way through every neighborhood.
	Ian Lewis is a filmmaker, radio producer, and writer. His work has been published by Signal Hill and The Dig, and screened at Ballroom Marfa and the Houston Cinema Arts Festival, among others. Originally from Massachusetts, he has spent the last dozen years living in West Texas, where he mostly worked as a broadcast engineer. There, he also runs The Beach, a low-power FM station for long-duration audio work. A graduate of St. John's College in 2024 (Sanskrit/eastern studies) and UC Santa Cruz in 2013 (physics, philosophy), he is happy to once again be playing in a UC Gamelan ensemble.
	Vanessa MacDonald grew up in far northern California, where most of her writing is set. She holds a BA in creative writing from Birkbeck, University of London. Her flash fiction won the 2023 Lascaux Prize and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in Chicago Review, Cimarron Review, Meridian, and elsewhere. She’s currently working on a novel.
	Citlali Meritxell Diaz (they/them) is a Mexican-American fiction writer and poet from Oxnard, California. They recently received bachelor’s degrees in English Literature as well as Ancient Greek & Roman Studies from UC Berkeley. During Citlali’s time in undergrad, they published numerous chapters from their novels and poems in literary magazines both in print and online. Their work revolves around Mexican and Mexican-American culture, language, and immigration, as well as queerness, transness, and the infinite griefs and loves that come from complex identities and connections in this beautiful and tragic world.
	Archi Nokrek is a nonfiction writer and artist. She grew up in Bangladesh, went to high school in India and completed her B.A. in Creative Writing with Honors in English from Knox College in Illinois, a place that occupies a very special space in her heart. She has lived in four different countries and California will be the fourth US state she calls home. Her writing revolves around the politics of language, the impact of immigration on self and art, and, the precious mundane of everyday life. When she’s not writing, she’s either baking, painting or FaceTiming her friends and family
	Kali Norris is a poet from New York City. Previous credits include JMWW, Q/A, and Thimble, and her poem Soliloquy from the Pyre was nominated for a Best of the Net award.
	Abigail Pak is a Korean-American writer from Southern California whose poems often center around connection, queerness, religious tension, and memory. She studied English and Gender Studies at Westmont College and has been published in several journals both in print and online. She enjoys spending time with friends and family, her dog, watching crime procedurals, and ceramics.
	Kinjal Potdar (she/her) is an Indian American playwright and screenwriter from New Jersey. Her work centers loss, resilience, and wonder in worlds that blend the real with the fantastical. She graduated with honors from Smith College where she studied sociology and neuroscience, which inform her writing. In her free time, she enjoys playing soccer and baking focaccia bread portraits.
	Drew Reynolds (he/she/they) is an award-winning neurodivergent, genderfluid Arkansan who works as a playwright, poet, author, actor, teacher, director, stage manager, composer, and more. They hold a BA in Creative Writing from the University of Central Arkansas with minors in Spanish, Honors, and Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. They’ve performed in dozens of shows, been selected as a Finalist for the Del Shores Foundation Writers Search for their stage-play Rut, and been published in national collections such as the citizen trans* {project}. Their portfolio focuses on Arkansan experiences, neurodiversity empowerment, and exploratory magical realisms to promote empathy. They've taught elementary, middle, and high schoolers the art of playwriting in camps and after-school classes, and strongly believe that good people are everywhere. In their freetime, they play three instruments, practice book arts, hike, and volunteer. As a playwright, they write under the name Arkansas Reynolds. If you would like to get in contact with them, they can be reached on Instagram at @Arkansas_Reynolds, or by email at arkansasreynolds@gmail.com.
	Dee Richards is a neurodiverse writer and intersectional feminist, based in Los Angeles. She holds a BA in English with Honors from UC Irvine – Dee's undergraduate honors thesis, a hybrid horror-memoir, won the Humanities Honors Program Prize in 2023. Dee is the recipient of the L.M. & Marcia McQuern Endowed Graduate Award in Non-fiction Writing, an affiliate writer with the Horror Writers Association, and a former associate editor at Exposition Review. In their work, Dee explores the horror of domestic violence, interacts with current works in autotheory, and makes readers laugh at the darkest moments. When not writing, Dee is caring for two awesome kids, playing one of their 70+ board/card games, or geeking out over comics and Star Trek. Check out DeeRichards.com for links to Dee's published works, read her blog, and see what's forthcoming.
	Baylee Shlichtman writes about the epic in the intimate and the magical in the mundane. Her play Symbiotic, which she wrote here at UC Riverside, was awarded the 2026 Louise Wigglesworth Award for Excellence in Playwriting and received further development with Wild Imaginings, EST/LA, and the Curtis Theatre. Other full-length plays include Good Romans (PlayGround, Finalist for 2026 Words Cubed at Utah Shakespeare Festival), How the League of Evil Cowboy Clowns Took Down the Flapman For Good (Semi-finalist for 2026 Seven Devils New Play Foundry, The Workshop Theatre), The House of Flightless Birds (AlterTheatre, Curtis Theatre, TYA ThinkTank, Vision Latino), In the Mouth of the Beast (New Relic Theatre, Longlist for 2025 Theatre503 International Playwriting Award, Urbanite Theatre, The Vagrancy Theatre) and You’ll Be Made of Ashes Too (Flamboyán Productions, Great Plains Theatre Conference, Semi-finalist for 2025 Ojai Playwrights Conference). Upcoming publications with Breath of Fire Latina Theatre Company, Smith & Krauss, and Concord Theatricals.
	James Song is a student of creative nonfiction. He was raised in Seoul and Los Angeles. After working in coffeeshops, restaurants, and schools, he decided to make his life harder by writing. His interests include masculinity, Christian spirituality, and culture. He enjoys cooking and playing the trumpet, both classical and jazz music. He went to a liberal arts college in Boston and has a degree in English.
	Sam Stein (Screenwriting, he/him) is a writer of all sorts. After growing up in Madison, Connecticut, he graduated from Pace University’s New York City campus in 2025, winning awards for his screenplays, essays, and comic book scripts. Sam likes to write about the cartoon characters he has bouncing around in his head, usually by placing them in fantastical settings and/or dream-like scenarios. Outside of writing, Sam likes playing/watching video games, board games, card games, improv games, baseball games, and game shows, and dreams about winning them all someday.
	Maya Naasira Thompson is an actor and writer. She earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Screen Acting from Chapman University and is now earning her Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing & Writing for the Performing Arts (Screenwriting) from the University of California, Riverside. Her accolades include the Annette Bening Award for Outstanding Performance in Screen Acting, as well as collaborating on the short film she wrote and starred in, directed by John Badham (dir. Saturday Night Fever).
	Julian Zaragoza is a fiction writer and comedian from the historically Mexican and increasingly unaffordable Los Angeles neighborhood of Boyle Heights. His work is motivated by the most pressing issues facing the Latine community in the US: algorithmic surveillance, gentrification and displacement, mental illness and madness, the intersection of biopolitical and necropolitical violence, and the unceasing humiliation ritual that is the career of Gabriel Iglesias. When he is not writing or teaching, he can be found roaming the streets of Los Angeles, rambling to strangers about the genius of Paul Beatty, the importance of Domenico Losurdo, and the beauty of spectating a Metro station squabble.
	Cecilia Zugel is an MFA student in Screenwriting at UC Riverside who loves writing satires and dark comedies about girls trapped in tough situations, tracking the ways in which they escape and flourish or spiral into even worse straits. She often writes screenplays and creative nonfiction pieces about e(x)vangelicalism, sexuality, OCD, and mental health, pulling inspiration from real life experiences. While at UCR, Ceci has trained in standup comedy with Upright Citizens Brigade, interned on the Editorial Content team at Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts, worked as a casting intern at CCA Casting Agency, and volunteered as a script reader for American High. Before beginning her MFA, Ceci worked in grant writing at the (pre-takeover!) Kennedy Center and wrote and performed sketch comedy with DC’s very own Unofficial Late Night. Besides ULN and local standup, Ceci's performance credits include the short films Loves Me Not (Tara) and IRL: In Real Life (Kiki). Also an avid singer, Ceci has appeared in many recitals, musicals, and plays including Lend Me a Soprano (Elena), Oliver! (Mrs. Sowerberry), and her own ten-minute play, Proximity (Claire).