WCA Board Members

2025 Board

President

Kim Ray

Kim Ray is an award-winning Writer, Director and Producer based in Los Angeles. She has directed commercials for Fortune 500 clients, developed and written scripted and unscripted projects and Executive Produced and directed premium documentary television, including GAGA: FIVE FOOT TWO for Netflix. She co-wrote and produced the Oscar-winning short comedy-musical, WEST BANK STORY and she has won numerous writing and film competition awards. Kim has written and is attached to direct the feature film WHAT THEY SAW which is based on the short story A JURY OF HER PEERS by Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Susan Glaspell. The script has a rating of an 8 on The Black List, something only 5% of scripts achieve and was a trending script on the site. She has also taught film and television directing and producing courses at USC and SCAD. She’s represented by Nicole Zien at Innovative Artists. www.softpowerpictures.com

Vice President

Monica Cecilia Lucas

Monica is a Puerto Rican screenwriter who hails from suburban California. Raised by a career-military father and a New Yorican mother, Monica lived a sheltered childhood of strictly enforced rules. As a teenager, she rebelled the best way she knew how: by moving to rural Ohio, where she sank deep into the world of politics. After receiving her BA in Political Science, she relocated to Washington, DC where she spent four years as a political activist working in the U.S. Department of State and for various nonprofits and think tanks. Disillusioned by the 2016 election, she abandoned her political ambitions and moved to Los Angeles, where she received her MFA in Writing for Screen and Television from USC. 

Director, Publicity + Partnership

Dana Kempler

Neda is an Iranian-American writer, actor, and producer who graduated summa cum laude with a degree in Writing for Screen & Television from the USC School of Cinematic Arts, where she founded the first annual Feminist Media Festival. Neda has worked in the writers rooms of Netflix, Hulu, The CW, and ABC series. Her first feature film as a writer-producer, Influence, is in development and she is an alumna of the Mentorship Matters BIPOC Writers Initiative. As an actress, Neda stars in the feature film Bird of Paradise from Equilibria Pictures. And as an advocate for entertainment industry workers, she has been featured in The Hollywood Reporter, IndieWire, and The Guardian. She writes about rebellious women who fight the systems that silence them. 

Board Member

Sabrina “Dossi” Mansfield

Sabrina Mansfield is an award-winning director, writer and line producer. She has directed commercials, music videos, multi-cam sitcoms, a reality show, over 20 shorts, and a feature. As a writer, Sabrina’s voice can be described simply as: “If Norman Lear wrote kids shows” because she uses comedy to focus on the working class, people of color, and people with disabilities. As a director, multi-cam is her passion. She was the first grad student at USC to shoot an original multicam pilot (and an episode 1) in front of a live studio audience. Because of her passion for television, she was given the opportunity to do observerships with some of TV’s most accomplished directors, like James Burrows, David Trainer, Barnet Kellman, Pam Fryman, Gail Mancuso and Warren Hutcherson. She was recently selected for the 2024 Disability Belongs Fellowship for Writing Children’s Animation.

Board Member

Ariel Blandford

Ariel Blandford is an American producer and photographer whose childhood in the redwoods of rural Mendocino led her to a career in adventure television. She has worked with companies such as Discovery, HBO, and CBS. She currently works on the long-running show Survivor - producing in the remote jungle and following that story into post-production in Los Angeles. She is also the creator and author of Women of Survivor. A book highlighting the hardworking women of the Survivor crew who are reshaping what the traditional working woman looks like. Ariel is an advocate for women working in film, especially when it comes to more women working in adventure television. She graduated from the USC School of Cinematic Arts, Film Production program in 2015 and is now a board member of the USC Women of Cinematic Arts.

Board Member

Erika Navarro

Erika Navarro is a writer, director, and business coach for artists and entrepreneurs. Erika is currently in pre-production on her first scripted feature MY SUNDOWN and in the finishing stages of her first documentary feature, RUN AWAY AMY. Her award-winning work has played at 60+ film festivals worldwide, with her latest short DIVINE MOTHER winning “Best Screenplay” and “Best Editing” awards. As a WGA screenwriter, Erika has sold a children’s comedy pilot to Amazon Studios, written a feature adaptation for A&E Networks, and developed long-form projects with Universal Content Productions and Team Todd, among others. From 2010-2015, Erika was the founder of femme-driven digital studio Comediva, where she built an audience to 3M+ monthly views and produced 300+ original comedy videos featured in outlets like Good Morning America, The New York Times, The Today Show, CNN, and countless more, as well as original content for Univision and Nickelodeon. Erika holds an MFA in Screenwriting from the USC School of Cinematic Arts and joined the Writer’s Guild of America in 2016.

Director, Events + Programming

Sarah Ivy

Carolyn works as a story producer and writer with credits for Hulu and A&E Networks. She graduated from USC Cinema School with a BFA in Writing for Screen & Television and a minor in history. Her creative work focuses on producing docu-series that examine past pop-culture phenomenons through our modern day lens. She also writes scripts and novels that focus on the strength of female characters and resilience after tragedy. Growing up in a military family that lived across the United States and Europe, Carolyn has seen first hand how historical and cultural differences impact our world today and incorporates those facets in her writing. Outside of her work in the entertainment industry, Carolyn is an avid skier and true crime podcast binger.

Board Member

Ashley Maria

Ashley Maria is an Emmy Nominated director and writer located in Los Angeles, CA. She received her MFA from the USC School of Cinematic Arts, is the recipient of the prestigious Directors Guild of America award, and most recently, she was recognized as the “Best New Director” at the DTLA Film Festival. Ashley is also an advocate for advancing women’s opportunities. She is a North American delegate to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women – the principal global policy-making body dedicated exclusively to gender equality and the advancement of women. When not on set, Ashley is a directing instructor at UCLA’s Film School and a sound instructor at the American Film Institute’s Young Women in Film program. www.ashley-maria.com

Board Member

Meehna Goldsmith

Meehna has a breadth of professional experience, including screenwriter, journalist, copywriter, blogger and teacher. Her pilot HEADCASE won awards in the Austin Film Festival, Golden Script Competition, and Creative Screenwriting TV Pilot Competition. Her treatment for Bunco men, based on a true life story, rated in the top 20 for both treatment and Western. Meehna is a mentor at both USC and UCLA.

Board Member

Dorian Hess-Dees

Screenwriter, novelist, ghostwriter… insurance adjuster. Dorian Hess-Dees graduated with an MFA in Writing for Screen and Television in 2010. Since then, she has worked as a staff writer, creator, and head writer for a number of independent production companies. She’s best known for her work on NBC’s Siberia and PBS’s Empowered. She writes novels as D.L. Hess and ghostwrites on the side. In 2017, she moved from L.A. to the other LA (Louisiana) and currently works remotely as an insurance adjuster for a Fortune 500 insurance company, which still involves a lot of writing. On evenings and weekends, she works as a professional screenwriter and novelist.  She has a passion for outreach to the other SCA alumna who are spread across the country. 

Board Member

Nancy Greene

Nancy has worked in entertainment in many areas. Her interviews include Eddie Murphy & Arsenio Hall, Jennifer Lawrence, Reggie Bythewood, Christopher Nolan, Uzo Aduba, Kathy Bates, Idris Elba, RZA, and more. Recently, several of her short films and projects have played in film festivals and received awards and nominations. She has a BA in Cinematic Arts & a minor in English from CA's USC & is a past Screenwriting Fellow of Film Independent’s Project: Involve. She also has a new YA novel, from a traditional publisher, debuting soon.