Amanda Alfonso (Screenwriting) formed her filmic consciousness as a lonely teen, borrowing screwball comedy movies at the library and watching TCM marathons to keep the blues away. While she aims to experiment more with genre and style, she primarily writes dark comedies about people living on the periphery and their attempts to articulate their relationships, identities, and desires within that space.

When not creating characters, she’s probably listening to her favorite song on repeat (“Bad Decisions” by The Strokes) or watching something she will equally love and scoff at (French films).

She received her BFA in Motion Pictures and Television from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. 

Noah Amir Arjomand (Screenwriting) is an Iranian-American filmmaker and author. His first (co-directed, co-produced) feature-length documentary, Eat Your Catfish, is about his mother’s last years with the motor-neuron disease ALS. The film premiered in 2021 at the International Documentary Filmfestival Amsterdam and won Best Documentary at Istanbul Film Festival.

Cambridge University Press published Noah’s first book, Fixing Stories: Local Newsmaking and International Media in Turkey and Syria, in 2022. Fixing Stories explores the worlds of the “fixers” who act as brokers between foreign reporters and local sources from behind the scenes. He has also written about politics, culture, and media in Middle East and Central Asia for Dissent, Public Culture, Tehran Bureau, The Afghanistan Analysts Network, Profil, American Anthropologist, The New Arab, and others.

Noah earned a PhD in sociology from Columbia University and a bachelor’s degree in public and international affairs from Princeton University. Before coming to Riverside, Noah lived in Bloomington, Indiana, where he taught at Indiana University. He likes cats and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

Rodolfo Avelar (Poetry) is a queer & nonbinary putx, poet, and artist from Fresno, CA. They hold a BA from Fresno State, where they studied English Literature and Creative Writing. Their poetry imagines futures/science-fictions/eroticas for queer people of color. They were awarded a Summer 2019 Milkweed Editions internship, in which they designed and edited book length poetry manuscripts. This work cemented their goal to work in editing to dismantle barriers of entry for queer poets of color by creating opportunities for, giving life to, and caring for queer poets of color and their work. They hope to publish, edit, & teach poetry, play lots of video games, and always listen to Charli XCX. 

Eduardo Brandi -he/him- (Poetry) is a native from Houston, TX, and a proud Mexican American. He attended the College of Saint Benedict/Saint John’s University in rural Minnesota and graduated with a Bachelor’s in English in creative writing. After college, his passion for learning cultures and teaching English led him to Okinawa, Japan, as an English TA for Shogaku Okisho.

His writing can be described as capturing moments of culture through a camera lens. He hopes to use his writing as a bilingual speaker to bridge understanding between people and their space in the world. He has been published through the American Library of Poetry and has attained international awards such as the Benjamin A. Gilman and Freeman-ASIA. His hobbies include playing the guitar, boxing, watching anime, attending music concerts, and taking adventurous road trips.

Aron Brown (Fiction) is a non-binary bisexual Angeleno who learned to read at a very early age by imitating their parents, holding the book upside down, and making up most of the words. This put them on the road to composing stories for the rest of their life. Many years later, they graduated from Wellesley College with a major in Cinema and Media Studies. They are obsessed with history, literature (especially Shakespeare), comics, and tabletop RPGs. Aron also spent many years writing fanfiction, but don’t look it up.

Efren Castro -they/them- (Poetry) is a queer Latinx poet, editor, workshop presenter, and record collector originally from Lennox, CA. They are an English graduate with an MCS minor from UC Riverside who writes, designs, and publishes their own zines. Their work is inspired by the past; nostalgia, retro 80s/90s aesthetics, and stories from their past. They are dedicated to community building through the sharing and preservation of stories often lost in modern popular culture. Their poetry zine "Heartbreak Stories" was published by Mi Casita Press in March 2020 and their art zine "Days in my Life" is available now with Curious Publishing!

Ava Fojtik (Playwriting) is a writer and visual artist from Oshkosh, Wisconsin. She graduated from Augsburg University in Minneapolis with a degree in World Religions. During her undergraduate career, she interned with the only Jewish community in Namibia, and had her photography published in Murphy Square and Plain China magazines. Her play “Two Men and a Woman in a House” was produced by Augsburg University in 2021. Her favorite writer is Kurt Vonnegut and her favorite food is raspberries.

Esther Gatica (Playwriting) was born and raised in San Pedro Sula, Honduras; Her formal theatre studies began at CC-Artes (Honduras). Her career path continued with Teatro Prometeo’s Acting Conservatory in Theatre Arts at  Miami Dade College (Miami, Florida). With Prometeo she has performed in: “Electra” a Rasa boxes adaptation by Fernando Calzadilla, “The Conduct of Life” written by Maria Irene Fornes and Directed by Joann Yarrow for the International Hispanic Theatre Festival in Miami, as well as several staged readings done as part of the Miami Book Fair International under the direction of Beatriz Rizk. Esther has written and directed two of her own one-act plays "On Behalf of them, Thank you" and “Lolo”, presented as part of the Arts and Philosophy Department of Miami Dade College. Esther is a recent Bachelor's in Fine Arts recipient from Oral Roberts University (Tulsa, Oklahoma). There she also performed in several productions: "Rosencrantz And Guildenstern are Dead" by Tom Stoppard, "Twelfth Night" by Shakeaspeare, and  "Lost in Yonkers" by Neil Simon, among others. Understanding the power of storytelling in all forms, she is eager to continue growing and is blessed by the opportunity to do so at UCR! Para Dios todo es posible. 

Lily Hart (Playwriting) grew up in Kohler, Wisconsin before moving to Minneapolis to study history at the University of Minnesota. From there, she found her way into museums and archives as far away as London (and even further on her computer’s long reach). But the history she learned kept begging for a better editor. Embracing her long standing passion for theater and fiction she graduated Summa Cum Laude as a double major in history and English, with a minor in creative writing in spring 2019. She then explored artistic opportunities in the Twin Cities before setting out for the promise of more deadlines in sunny California.

Kristen Herbert (Fiction) is native to the Chicago area, but spent the last several years in Budapest and rural Hungary. She translates contemporary Hungarian literature to English, namely young poets. Her fiction work explores dysfunctional relationships, addiction, and dissatisfaction with the self. She is a co-editor and founder of the bilingual Hungarian-English literary journal The Penny Truth and serves on the masthead of Hungarian Literature Online. Her studies were in English Literature and Creative Writing at Roosevelt University in Chicago and the Hungarian literary translation workshop at the Balassi Institute in Budapest. In her best life she travels often.

Aaron Higareda (Playwriting) is more than excited to return home! He graduated from UCR in 2017 with a B.A. in Theater, Film, and Digital Production with an emphasis in Writing for the Performing Arts. For the last three years he fell in love with the San Francisco Bay Area theater scene where he was the 2018-2019 Marketing Fellow for the American Conservatory Theater, a house manager for Berkeley Repertory Theater and Shotgun Players, and a box office manager for Playground-SF. He is currently the Data and Membership Specialist for Theater Bay Area. Aaron has had workshop productions with CASA 0101 and El Teatro Campesino and most recently self-produced a zoom staged reading of his first full length play “You don’t even speak Spanish!”. When he is not working, writing, or worrying about working and writing, he enjoys chilling with his partner and their two crazy-ass kids!

Victoria Hurtado-Angulo (Poetry) is a Latina MFA candidate in Creative Writing at UCR. She has been a featured reader and orchestrator at open mic events, held lectures for independent and academic poetry workshops, and published poetry ranging from zines to established publications such as About Place Journal/Black Earth Institute, EveryLibrary, and Bangalore Review. Her play What these flowers do at night/a message to the world was featured in UCR’s Latino Play Production this year. Besides academic work, Victoria is Co-Founder of Art of Nothing Press, a Southern California publication for poetry and visual art.