Tamara was eight when she terrified her babysitter’s kids with a made-up tale about a man losing his hand on a rollercoaster. As she spun the story, the children were entranced, eyes wide, hanging on every word… until the hand whirled through the air and slapped the drowsing rollercoaster operator. Then came the screams, the apologies from her parents to theirs, and a grounding – which was totally worth it. Since then, she has honed her storytelling abilities in her day job as an English teacher.
Tamara was on the 2026 short list for the WIF/Blacklist Episodic Lab and was accepted into the Stowe Narrative Lab for the fall of 2026. She was a Shore Script TV Mentorship finalist in 2025. In 2024, she was a fellow at the Native American Media Alliance TV Writers Lab and received the NAMA Writer’s Acceleration Grant. She just finished directing an independent short film this summer with a group of fellow NAMA alumni.
Tamara is an enrolled citizen of the Osage Nation. She is an active member of The Engine, a weekly Los Angeles-based writers’ group and holds a BA and MA in Drama. Tamara’s writing includes elements of magical realism, science fiction, with comedy woven throughout – because it’s her language: the result of being raised on a diet of Star Trek and fairy tales as she grew up among the sweat, guns, reservations, and rowdiness of Oklahoma. She resides in Los Angeles with her family and a tiny, scrappy dog she helped rescue under a car on an I-5 onramp – true story.