About Us
Inkblot is the Orange County School of the Arts' award-winning literary magazine. Staffed by Creative Writing, Digital Media, and Visual Arts students and overseen by the 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
Milana Berhe
Senior Editor
she/they
Milana is the most all-over-the place-person you will ever meet. She can switch from listening to Mitski to Tyler the Creator to The Strokes to literally Lemonade Mouth (yes, as in the Disney movie) to random songs she heard online, all in one playlist. Not to mention, it’s physically impossible for her to read less than two books at a time. She can’t work on anything even remotely important without background noise, and she has some interesting desires (such as wishing she could fly because she wants to breathe air at the height that airplanes travel at even though she knows it’s physically impossible to do so). To many, her room is overwhelming – covered in posters from ceiling to floor, plants that span the lengths of walls, and books and blind-box-figures everywhere – but to her, it’s a cozy masterpiece. It's very easy for her to fixate on things, so she has many favorites – like artists (Yoshitomo Nara, Antonio Gaudi), musicians (Laufey, Beabadoobee, BTS), color (pink), food (poke), a billion other things. She’s not very funny which means she has to make up for those social points by seeming smart… She thinks the solution is to think miserably, sometimes absurdly, which she’s gotten quite good at writing about.
Jamie Jung
Senior Editor
she/her
Jamie’s dream is to sell popcorn at a traveling circus hitchhiking on trains. She then remembers that she could never give up boba (she’s already tried too many times) and returns to crying over Canadian indie movies she’s waited two years for the US release. The theatre is her comfort place. From superhero-action movies with faulty cgi to rom-coms with too many musical numbers, she will enjoy watching any movie you throw at her. If you want to see her smile, push her onto a spotlit stage and ask her to perform some of her poetry. Just be careful not to get lost in her thoughts; if you can’t tell, they’re quite chaotic.
Courtney Hines
Senior Editor
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.
Mia Yen
Contributing Editor
she/her
According to her Spotify Wrapped, Mia’s mornings are comforting dramatic sad boi. However, that only applies to her music taste, and unfortunately is the kind of quality she can only aspire to reach in her writing. Everything she writes features variations of the same two characters because she can’t seem to understand the concept of originality. As someone who has a love-hate relationship with dialogue—both in writing and in real life—she wishes we could all just communicate in eyebrow raises. She also happens to be a rabid One Piece fan who loses a piece of her mind every time one of her friends tells her they haven’t watched the live action yet. But she can’t blame them because she would rather watch Naruto Shippuden three times than start on any show her friends have recommended. Her biggest wish currently is for movie theaters to be more considerate and stop playing horror movies because they scare her.
Grace Chung
Contributing Editor
she/her
Grace is a junior 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
Contributing Editor
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.
Lyn Huang
Contributing Editor
they/any
When bored, Lyn will probably open one of the 160 tabs on their laptop and find something to read off of a Very Long Mental TBR List while blasting Yorushika’s songs in the background, or watch hour-long youtube video essays. In a most ideal world, they would be living anonymously somewhere in the world, writing books and consuming an egregious amount of sparkling water and hot cheetos. But this is not an ideal world where pronouns exist, so the writing only happens sometimes, the sparkling water rarely, and hot cheetos with a side of identity crisis a bit too often for their budget.
When they do write, it’s probably going to be about two rather pathetic people living out boring, mundane lives because they apparently “write what they know best”. They then also like to self-inflict suffering by drawing mock-manga panels of those characters, even though they know they’re actually best at drawing inanimate objects, not people, but anyways…
If ever one would like some questionable manga or novel recommendations, Lyn does have the lists ready. It contains information and websites that will make the exchange completely legal, not to worry… haha!
(Contrary to popular belief, Lyn’s personality isn’t entirely composed of astrophysics, long grammatically incorrect sentences, and The Great Gatsby. It’s probably just about 70% of the grand total.)
They just saw a reel that said “I’m not an early bird or night owl but a permanently exhausted chicken” which they identify strongly with, so they’re just going to pass out in their chair now. Cheerio!
Sam Holt
Contributing Editor
she/her
Like the weenie she is, Sam is more than happy to be caught under a blanket fort watching an obscure, foreign childrens cartoon you’ve never heard of. Or maybe a popular one you have heard of. Probably a popular one. If one thing’s for sure, you’ll never spot her watching something in a 3:4 aspect ratio (especially if it’s black and white). When prompted to write anything at all, there’s about a 98.4% chance she’ll spin you a fairytale, her crutch of choice. Blame it on her formative years as a pegasister and her sci-fi loving dad. Though on first impression she may seem shy, give her a week and she’ll reveal her true colors: loud, obnoxious, and stubborn. Self-taught snowboarder isn’t exactly a title earned through sound sense. And she’ll do anything to get a chuckle, if not a guffaw, knee-slap, teehee, or even a violent exhale from the nose. But, while she waits, she’ll be wondering why she can’t order a pastrami on banana bread with cottage cheese.
Via le
Contributing Editor
she/her
She is paying attention. When she’s crocheting, that just means she wants to listen closely to what you have to say. If you ask her what she’s making, it’ll be along the lines of a stuffed animal, a shirt, or “I'll figure it out”… If she could, Olivia would spend all her time reading and writing in cafés with a strong cup of matcha. Virginia Woolf, Toni Morrison, and Ocean Vuong would be among her most welcome acquaintances. She also loves to spend time at the beach and hopes to pursue marine science in the future. Olivia takes pride in being a foodie for good food and especially loves making bánh xèo with her whole family. Poetry and dance are her main forms of expression and she couldn’t imagine what she’d do without them.
David Bae
Contributing Editor
he/him
If you’ve always wanted to know someone who has more cats than family members, a rather debilitating obsession with tea, and a love for Guy Ritchie, then look no further than David. The type of guy to enjoy long hikes and fishing trips, he’s always had a knack for all things nature, and it comes to most people’s surprise that he has five cats. However, more varied than his feline friends (or the weirdly shaped moles on his face) is his music taste; one day he’ll be listening to jazz and the next day it’ll be UK drill or k-rnb—it’s scary how all over the place it is. His feats are as listed: set a new record in his friend group for falling while ice skating, ate 10 breadsticks at olive garden (plus three entrees) in a single sitting, squatted 285 pounds while blindfolded, and petted a wild feral wolf at night. Don’t worry, he didn’t get rabies from petting that wolf, at least to the best of his knowledge…
Lacole Yang
Contributing Editor
they/he
Lacole's favorite words are ravenous, amative, and cataphysical. They will not stop adding books to their to be read list, even though it already contains 140 items, so if they tell you they really need book recommendations, be advised that this is not entirely true. Poetry and purple are the highlights of their existence because they enjoy delicate shades of interpretation that extend infinitely. It disappoints Lacole to no end that they are not a vampire, so they compensate by reading as much vampire literature as they can find.