Amy Chen
Amy is a Business major at IVC–a psychology major in disguise–who is passionate about personal development, hoping to help people carve out their own success stories. R&B music is her escape; young adult fiction is her guilty pleasure on a lazy summer day. She loves rock climbing and aerial dance, and likes to go on spontaneous adventures (especially if they involve food).
Mikey Chen
Mikey is a Data Science student at IVC. He enjoys learning about math and loves talking about art in different types of genres. He hopes to find a career working with VR technology.
Helen Yajaira
Estrada
Helen (Maya & Xinka) is an Aerospace Engineer major aspiring to transfer and double majoring in Latin American studies. Helen has published several of their poems in online journals and participated as a writer on Orange County Environmental Justice’s comic book Lead Me To the Garden. Estrada hopes to continue to write, draw, research, translate, and learn anything that comes their way!
![Barbara Hill [PLACEHOLDER].jpeg](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/53d442_c4eb962f56684367bf2313062ffcb147~mv2.jpeg/v1/crop/x_186,y_0,w_2330,h_2845/fill/w_208,h_254,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/Barbara%20Hill%20%5BPLACEHOLDER%5D.jpeg)
Barbara Hill
Barbara is an English major at IVC with a love of writing, art, and tabletop roleplaying games. In fact, she loves those games so much she’s also become president of the school’s Board Game Club and runs games of Dungeons and Dragons and Blades in the Dark for her friends. She loves reading interesting stories and analyzing them, and she loves her adorable cats Ceaser and Nori.
Dirk McLemore
Dirk is an English major at IVC who loves writing and art. He’s been writing for ten years in various forms and specializes in writing fiction and not in writing staff blurbs about himself (but don’t tell anyone that.)
Jasmin Liao
Jasmin is a Computer Science major at IVC and UCSC. She enjoys drawing and writing poetry whenever she has free time and takes a lot of inspiration from nature. Her favorite book currently is the Midnight Library. Her goal is to find a career within the entertainment industry!
Amelie Muro
David is an English major at IVC. He loves the outdoors as an avid backpacker and environmentalist, but he also loves to spend time indoors reading fantasy and science fiction novels and writing poetry and fiction.
Ara Marquez
Ara is aiming for a career in scientific/medical writing, and is pursuing English and Mortuary Science degrees. She enjoys horror media and biology, and often uses direct inspiration for her creative work. Her hobbies include enjoying live music, exploring coffee shops, and watching movies.
Raquel Sokol (they/them)
Raquel is a psychology major who plans to either minor or double major in something else when they transfer. They worked last year with The Ear, and loved getting to be involved with fiction and poetry after a long time away. Their work and interests are examining identity, existence, race, ethnicity, and history among others. They love most creative formats, but reading and engaging with fiction and poetry will always be their first love.
Wyleen Olaes
[she/her]
Wyleen has an MA in English from UCI and is currently an English instructor at IVC. Her interests are in race, storytelling, identity, media representations, spectrality, and Asian American studies. In addition to teaching, she enjoys visiting coffee shops, art museums, and libraries.
Melissa Perez
Melissa is a psychology major attending IVC who also has a passion for poetry. She loves the beauty of expressing her innermost thoughts and emotions through creative writing. She coaches color guard, her favorite colors are red and pink, she loves skincare, and her favorite artist is The Weeknd. More than anything, Melissa loves to slay everyday.
makayla wu
Makayla is studying English and Art History at IVC with a particular interest in sci-fi short fiction, and in the past, she has enjoyed the work of Ray Bradbury. She loves to watch episodes of the x-files in her spare time and enjoys collecting postcards from everywhere that she visits in her travels. Makayla is also very fond of the Arts and Crafts Movement of the late 19th century.
Azad Samatar
(He/Him)
Azad is an English major here at IVC. A writer with a deep love of fiction of all stripes (especially the works of Terry Pratchet and Steven King), working to improve his writing and editing here at the Ear. A nerd for TTRPGs, He loves hiking through shaded trails and boardgame nights stretching long into the evening.
Jessica smith
Jessica is a Literature major with plans to teach high school English. Being an avid vinyl collector, there is always some variant of pop or rock blasting through her speakers. She is also a lover of film, RPGs, and reading fantasy and historical fiction. Pair these with some coffee, and she’s content!
elise tyler
Elise is an English major at IVC who loves surrounding herself with books, family, friends, and nature. She loves hanging out at the beach during summer but loves the rain in winter even more. Road tripping to new National Parks and binging Gilmore Girls are some of her favorite obsessions. Elise hopes to pursue a career in education to teach literature to students.
JUniper tran
[they/them]
Juniper is a second-year architect student & avid film photographer. They like vintage cars, bass guitars, handmade soap bars, Andy Warhol memoirs, marmalade jars, nighttime stars, and Hozier.
Coral braccini
kristen
skjonsby
Kristen has a PhD from UC Riverside in Global Anglophone Literature, a Master's degree from Cal State University Long Beach in English, and a Bachelor's degree in English from Mills College. She is a poet, and a lover of all things creative writing.
Vy Nguyen
[she/her]
Vy is a Political Science major at IVC. Her hobbies include reading and baking, but she also enjoys writing and editing stories in her free time. Her favorite artists to listen to while in a creative space are wave to earth and Laufey, but she is always open to any music recommendations.
Sophia Remram
Sophia is an English major at Irvine Valley College who has had a deep interest in stories since she was very young. She enjoys reading, and although she loves all types of stories, her favorite genres are fantasy, science fiction, and horror. She also enjoys creative writing and has written poems, short stories, plays, screenplays, and audio dramas.
izabella trejo
Izabella Trejo is a 20-year-old student here at Irvine Valley College. Izabella is currently studying English hoping to transfer next year to Cal State Long Beach and pursue screen writing. Izabella has always had a love for writing and reading since she was a little girl. Izabella's love for the art of writing and reading would come from her grandmother who also loved to read and write.
Olivia Manville
Olivia is a first-year English major at IVC who enjoys any and all things art. Some of her hobbies include listening to music, reading, baking, and watching movies with friends. She spends a lot of her time listening to indie pop, R&B, and alternative music. She hopes to continue writing in order to pursue a career in either journalism or marketing.
ethen nguyen (he/him)
Ethen is a first-year English major who has a passion for reading, writing, and discussing literature. He especially enjoys British literature, specifically the metaphysical works of Andrew Marvell, or Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. In his free time, he practices the piano, cafe-hops with friends, and goes book-thrifting for cheap classics; his 2023 summer grab is Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein!
John Salgado
My name is John Dylan Salgado Levesque. I am an Mexican American writer with a passion for law enforcement and poetry.
Miranda Hernandez
Miranda is studying creative writing with a specialization in Fiction at IVC. She is interested in Library Science and would like to become a Librarian to support her writing. Her favorite reading genre is Science Fiction, especially books by
Octavia E. Butler. Miranda enjoys knitting too.