About Us
Inkblot is the Orange County School of the Arts' award-winning literary magazine. Staffed by Creative Writing and Visual Arts students and overseen by the Co-Director of Creative Writing, Josh Wood, we produce a volume of the publication annually and review submissions of writing, visual art, photography, and music compositions throughout the school year.
Our Team
Meet the Editors
Sally Jang
Senior Editor
she/her
You’ll find Sally embedded in a watercolor scene of yellows, light greens, and bengal cats, with It Was Divine by Alina Baraz playing in the background—but only if the temperature is just right (27 degrees Celsius). At first glance, she is your average Community enthusiast, but at second glance, she is an otherworldly coming-of-age writer who unironically enjoys The Great Gatsby in a comfortable quiet. As an only child with only a yellow bird that resembles Pikachu and an Australian Shepherd strangely reminiscent of a panda for company, if she were to have a sibling, she’d want an older brother. Perhaps the next time you look at this watercolor painting she’ll be demonstrating her extraordinary ability to touch her toes with red and white nails, adding to her playlists on Spotify, or writing flash fiction.
Antara Kalle
Senior Editor
she/her
Antara is a rising senior in creative writing. Her favorite thing to write is realistic fiction and creative nonfiction, as well as narrative and hybrid poetry. Her taste in music is just about as varied as her taste in literature. Her current ear obsessions are ‘Jo-Vaughn Virginie Scott’, Frank Ocean, Best Coast, and the Dammned, but if you ask her in a couple months, they would have probably changed quite drastically. In terms of reading, she’s starting to tackle Russian Lit, and hopes to get through most of Gogol’s best work this year, but aside from that she worships Natalie Diaz and her poetic genius, Postcolonial Love Poem being one of her all time favorite books. Antara is interested in Botany, with her love of Mycology being something she could talk both your ears off with. If you ever encounter her, ask Antara about her flower pressings, her favorite candy: strawberry bon bons, waffles (the superior breakfast food in her opinion). Just don’t try and enact an intervention to control her hot chocolate addiction, she wouldn’t give up sweet Swiss Miss for the world. She cannot wait for what this year will bring, and she hopes to help publish another great volume of Inkblot this year.
Katie Kim
Art Editor
she/her
Though fish are a frequent subject of Katie’s writing, it must be said that she’s uncomfortable looking at them in real life. Excitable, a little unpredictable, and most glaringly, bad at faces, you can catch her on the street waving to strangers because she mistook them for a friend. With prose poetry, the medium of her choice, Katie likes writing about the whimsicality and absurdness of childhood and other untended memories. She also loves creating visual art, currently being really into sewing and soft sculpture. Though she is defined by her love for the 2005 computer- animated 46% Rotten Tomatoes musical comedy mystery film Hoodwinked, Katie also feels reflected in Jack Stauber’s Micropop music and the 3D works of Jack Sachs.
Ally Wong
she/her
In her ideal world, Ally Wong would readily dive into a content life in the Chinese countryside. Presiding over her very own self-sustaining town full of friends, family, and constant echoes of Purrple Cat lo-fi tunes, you would find her encapsulated in perfect, unbroken solitude with her orange pet fox curled up in her lap. As such, with her expeditions through the uncharted, daring medium known as poetry, Ally welcomes homey settings and serendipitous epiphanies of her own identity in her pieces. Whenever you see her airpods in action, she is most likely captivated by the melodies of yeule and musing about her aspirations: her hope to maintain her sneaker and steamed taro lifestyle for the entirety of her life. Ally identifies as Azula from Avatar the Last Airbender and is devoted to bánh hỏi, experimental writing, and dying her hair.
Cheyenne Harkless
she/her
Don’t be shocked if you catch Cheyenne at the height of the stage. While she occasionally aspires to be elusive, luckily for everyone else, she doesn’t have the capacity. Cheyenne craves to be seen and known, and to get a laugh out of someone whenever possible, whether that’s through a silly drawing of Zelda, making music with an apple juice bottle, or talking about Sea Angels (objectively the best animal), remains to be seen. Not many know this, but Cheyenne is an immortal soul trapped in the body of a denarian, fostering passion for the arts over the centuries. Some say that in one of her past lives, she was a songstress, wistfully harping tales of ancient heroes. Today, one might catch the echoes of her reciting poetry under the Symphony Hall stage, reliving performances that have been near forgotten, or maybe at the Ren Faire, talking someone’s ear off about historically accurate corset lacing.
Ashley Park
she/her
Why’s Ashley crying again? Oh, Little Women’s on. Either get her a tissue or turn on Bo Burnham- because this might last a while. Ashley is a current senior at Orange County School of the Arts. When she isn’t crying over “indie” coming-of-age movies, you can find Ashley rattling her iced coffee- which you can bet is chock full of sugar and milk- or milk adjacent- in any cafe. Ashley’s favorite things to write are mostly screenwriting and performance poetry- given her flair for dramatics and deep, moody things- including oddly-specific Spotify playlists and her LED lights that she puts on disco mode any time it’s 3 AM and/or wants to listen to All Too Well (10 minutes version- i f it wasn’t obvious already about the everything about her- Ashley is a swiftie through and through). When she’s not writing, she also likes to translate her scripts into film, into slice-of-life vlogs with minimalistic graphics and animations- an aesthetic born out of her love her Pinterest and aesthetic Unstagram pages.
Milana Berhe
she/her
Milana is the most all-over-the place-person you will ever meet. She can switch from listening to Mitski to Twice to Lamp to The Strokes to some random song she heard online, all in one playlist. She cannot choose a favorite flower and will punch you if you ask (don’t doubt her – she’s learned techniques from 7 different forms of martial arts in her 16 short years!). She can’t work on anything even remotely important without background noise – silence drives her mad. She wishes she could fly because she wants to breathe air at the height that airplanes travel at and she collects books. She thinks it is hereditary because her grandma collects books too and her house has enough to be considered a library (“1,000 is the minimum in any self-respecting home library” - The New York Times). She likes to write about miserable people and sad little stories because she’s just that sophisticated and mature! Everyone knows not to mess with her. She’s Russian. She knows people… who know people… who know people… Are you scared yet? Don’t be! She’s just kidding! This was all fake…maybe…
Courtney Hines
she/her
In complete honesty, this Courtney can’t seem to get her mind off a show called Fleabag. In a more productive moment – a quite rare occasion – Courtney might have attempted to create a more thought-provoking description of herself to evoke the belief that one might truly catch a glimpse of the person she is. Unfortunately, at the time of writing this little biography, all Courtney can think about is the poignantly developed romance between an emotionally suppressed girl and a priest. She fears that this storyline may be present in her mind for the rest of her life, although she often feels this way about many things and forgets why she cared for them by the end of the week. This sacred tale of love, however, is different! While it may be concerning that someone would be so dedicated to a rather harrowing display of affection, Courtney thinks that it is quite a better alternative to endorsing vampires.
Jamie Jung
she/her
Jamie Jung is a junior in creative writing who wants to be a star wars fan so bad but after watching the entire franchise for the third time, she simply… cannot. When you find her during one of her 4 a.m. mental breakdowns trying to study for three tests happening in the same week, the solution to make her smile is simple: superheroes. She has at least 365 TED Talks about Ben Hargreeves, Jason Todd, Bucky Barnes, and Steven Grant ready for presentation in her head. Though, her least favorite literature genres are fantasy and science fiction. If you want to see her excessive but expressive hand flippity floppities, take her to a movie theater, art gallery, history museum, or your nearest boba shop, and she will name you her bestest friend for life.
Grace Chung
she/her
Grace is a sophomore in creative writing. Although she would love to say that she enjoys reading sophisticated books on psychology or social norms, most of the time, you’ll find her sitting in her bed with a sci-fi book in her right hand and a large (iced only!) matcha latte on her left. If you can’t find her there though, no need to worry. You can still easily find her in the corner most seats of a library, probably being buried by an over-adequate amount of stationery while working on her doodling journal. Besides these though, one of her favorite things to indulge in is making playlists on Spotify for every possible mood she could be in. Happy, worried, wanting to quit, procrastinating, about to fall asleep… you name it, and she’s got a playlist for it. Oh, and last thing. If she texts you something along the lines of “sorry I can’t talk right now,” she’s probably not in a dire situation, just at the cafe drinking coffee with her best friend (her mom)...
Kate Kim
she/her
Kate became a writer soon after she learned to read, when she realized that she could just make her own stories instead of having to read her favorite ones over and over. She loves the idea of being able to construct a whole intricate world based wholly on her own creation, and as a result, her writing reflects whatever occupies her mind at the moment—ranging from talking dogs, relationships between friends, fantastical stories, cultural contemplation and endlessly more. At the moment, her favorite genre has been realistic fiction in both her reading and writing. In her free time, she likes watching any and all movies (although she has a random affinity for borderline unrealistic, cheesy action movies—think Mission Impossible—as well as thriller k-dramas), spending time with her goldendoodle Coco, and playing tennis.