Editor-in-Chief. 2023-2025.
Strip Mall Magazine is a literary publication based in the MFA Creative Writing program at California Institute of the Arts.
I founded the magazine in 2023 as a first-year graduate student, building a diverse community of editors, writers, and artists from across the country.
In my role as inaugural Editor-in-Chief, I led the editorial team in submissions review, designed interior layouts for poetry, prose, and visual arts spreads, and reviewed final proofs for each issue before sending them to print.
As a new publication, accessibility was critical in finding our audience. I used Squarespace’s CMS to build and maintain a website where we released each issue for free, in addition to our print releases.
In celebration of each issue’s launch, we collaborated with other L.A. literary groups to host readings highlighting our local contributors.
At the end of my two years in the program, Strip Mall Magazine had published three full-color print and digital issues, featuring writers and artists from across the U.S, Canada, China, and Brazil. When I left my post as Editor-in-Chief, we had secured annual institutional funding, and were preparing for distribution with a small group of Los Angeles bookstores and art collectives.
Skills: editorial review, production, design, project management.
A novel-in-stories, seeking publication. 55,000 words.
Nineteen-year-old Allan and his brother Jackie roam the country, sleeping in rest stops and surviving on odd jobs. Reeling from their father’s recent death, the tenuous balance they've found between cooperation and codependence is threatened when family secrets and questions about the future start bubbling up from the backseat. As they drive aimlessly into the strange America outside the suburbs, they weave through the lives of tourists, locals, and other transient workers—a young woman unravelling a murder, a teenage boy haunted by rabbits, a rodeo bull rider who might be carrying a baby. Across every state line, a central question remains: what does it mean to stay, and what does it mean to go?
Read a sample.
Short film. 2025.
A teenage boy is haunted by strange visions after killing a rabbit outside his suburban neighborhood.
The final edit of Lucky is in post-production, but below you can see the film as it was screened at the 2025 REDCAT Showcase in Los Angeles—a silent edit accompanied by a reading from the original short story, which is included in my novel.
Gavin: James Cook
Chris: Joe Curry
Director of Photography: Dongxu Yan
Assistant Director: Maria Costa Anza
Sound: Analysia Calo
Special Effects: Richecia Henry
Production Assistant: Isaiah Johnson
Casting Assistant: Tamar Bresge
written, directed, produced, and edited by Berlin Mair
Production editor, writer. 2025.
May You Find What You're Looking For is an anthology of work by the 2025 graduating MFA cohort at California Institute of the Arts.
As Production Editor, I designed the interior layout, coordinated with the cover designer to produce ready-to-print files, and reviewed final proofs.
As a member of the cohort, my work is also featured. Read an excerpt of my short story, "Lucky."
Zine. 2024.
Web design
This website!
I built this site with a responsive desktop and mobile design using html5, CSS4, and Javascript.
Copywriting, research, academic writing. 2022.
In 2022 I worked with a small startup to produce updated audio tours for the Oregon Historical Society Museum in Portland. I conducted my own research to write concise, engaging, accurate audio descriptions for over 160 items.
The three scripts below [?].
creative non-fiction.
"Down by the Highway" was featured in Hair Trigger: 40, and won the first place award in Essays for Magazines from Columbia Scholastic Press in 2018.
Read it here