Tamara Stratton

Tamara’s storytelling journey began at age 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 the classroom as an English teacher at a Title 1 school in Los Angeles.

During the day she is a bespectacled mild-mannered teacher navigating angry parents and devastating teen drama, while attempting to convince hormone-addled students that words are important. At the end of the day, she puts away lesson plans and grading and creates worlds.

In 2024, Tamara was selected as a fellow with the Native American Media Alliance and participated in the 9th Annual Native American TV Writers Lab. Her pilot Wintercount is a 2025 Finalist at the Shore Script TV Mentorship Program and made the Coverfly Red List (may it rest in peace) for Sci-Fi pilots. Another pilot, The Phoenix, was a Quarterfinalist in the Big Break Competition and Los Angeles International Screenplay Awards, and a Semi-finalist in the Vail Film Festival Screenwriting Competition and also landed on the Coverfly Red List. She recently wrote an episode for an upcoming independent YouTube series Tribal Affairs, now in production.

Tamara is an active member of The Engine, a weekly Los Angeles-based writers’ workshop. A proud citizen of the Osage Nation (Grayhorse District, Deer Clan), she holds a BA and MA in Drama. Tamara’s writing focuses on magical realism and science fiction, 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. These genres are an escape and a way to grapple with the truth. They provide an intersection for a range of people to meet without the trappings of the ordinary to constrict discussion. 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.