BFA in Narrative Arts

Megan Jauregui Eccles

Chair of Creative Writing

Megan is an author, poet, and Chair of Creative Writing at John Paul the Great Catholic University. She holds a BA in Music from the University of San Diego and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of California Riverside-Palm Desert. Her writing has appeared in Kelp Journal, Coachella Review, Ladies of the Fright, The Lineup, and Dwarf+Giant. She has also worked as editorial assistant and social media manager for Hill Nadell Literary Agency. Her debut fantasy novel, Sing the Night, will be released by Grand Central Publishing in March 2026. She lives in San Diego with her husband and six children.

Christopher Riley

Professor of Screenwriting

Christopher Riley is a screenwriter, director and author with a career stretching from his groundbreaking 1999 film After The Truth, a multiple-award-winning German-language courtroom thriller, through screenwriting assignments for Disney’s Touchstone Pictures, Sean Connery’s Fountainbridge Films, Paramount Pictures, Mandalay Television Pictures and the Fox television network, to his directorial debut on the award-winning 2022 short film No Time Off for Good Behavior and his feature directing debut, the 2024 family revenge comedy No Reception. He is the author of the classic screenwriting reference The Hollywood Standard and The Defining Moment: How Writers and Actors Build Characters. He has taught screenwriting at the graduate and undergraduate levels for more than 20 years.

Julie Anne Stevens, PhD

Adjunct Professor of Humanities

Julie Anne has her PhD from Trinity College Dublin. She publishes and lectures on Irish literature and the visual arts, nineteenth and twentieth century Irish and American women’s writing, illustrated children’s books, and short fiction. She took early retirement in August 2021 from Dublin City University to relocate to the United States, and returned to JPCatholic where she had been a visiting professor from 2017-2019. As a tenured lecturer in the School of English, DCU, she served as a convenor for both Research (2015-17) and Teaching and Learning (2020-21). She also served as the Director for the Centre for Children’s Literature and Culture (2009-17). During this time, she was treasurer of the Irish Society for the Study of Children’s Literature (ISSCL) and in 2013 she accepted an invitation to join a panel of judges for the Children’s Books Ireland Awards. She currently is part of the team for the Irish Women’s Writing (1880-1920) Network and one of the editors for their forthcoming double issue of English Studies (2022-23) She published The Irish Scene in Somerville and Ross in 2007 and co-edited The Ghost Story from the Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century in 2010. Somerville Press published her latest book, Two Irish Girls in Bohemia: The Drawings and Writings of E. Œ. Somerville and Martin Ross, in 2017.

Robin Murray, PhD

Adjunct Professor of Humanities

Robin is a classicist whose research focusses on Imperial Rome, early Christianity and ancient philosophy. Her dissertation analyzed the theme of death and death preparation in the Satyrica, an ancient novel by Petronius who, although a friend to the Emperor Nero, was forced to commit suicide by him in 66 A.D. More broadly, she studies the Graeco-Roman world and strives to make it relevant to people of today. She received her PhD in Classics from UC Irvine where she taught classes on the history and literature of ancient Greece and Rome and served as the assistant editor to the Classics journal TAPA (Transactions of the American Philological Society). She lives in Northern San Diego with her husband and children.

Liam Cruz Kelly, PhD

Adjunct Professor of Humanities

Liam is a seminarian for the Diocese of San Diego and holds a PhD in English Literature from Boston University, where he specialized in medieval literature. His academic work focuses on the intersection of theology, literature, and labor in the Middle Ages. His dissertation explores William Langland’s 14th-century allegorical dream vision, Piers Plowman and his research interests include medieval vernacular theology, Middle English biblical translation, and the role of Scripture and sacrament in lay religious life. Liam is from southern California and he earned his BA in English and Classical Civilization from UCLA. He has taught courses in Medieval and Renaissance culture, church history, Shakespeare, Chaucer, and medieval drama.

Liam has also directed and acted in numerous medieval and renaissance plays with Willing Suspensions Productions at Boston University. His most recent production was Mankind, a Medieval Play (2022). He is passionate about helping students encounter the richness of Christianity and culture through the literary tradition.

Bill Marsilii

Visiting Professor

Bill co-wrote Déjà vu - a romantic time-travel thriller, which at the time was the highest-priced spec screenplay of all time after selling to Jerry Bruckheimer and Touchstone Pictures for $5 million. Déjà vu, which starred Denzel Washington, Paula Patton, Val Kilmer and Jim Caviezel, grossed more than $180 million worldwide. Marsilii sold 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: Captain Nemo to Walt Disney Pictures, and with his Deja Vu partner Terry Rossio, sold Lightspeed, a space adventure to Bruckheimer/Disney. More recently, Marsilii adapted the sci-fi comic Sebastian X for producer Gale Anne Hurd and director Martin Campbell, and sold an original project, Cold, to Lionsgate with Reese Witherspoon attached to star and produce. Marsilii has been a guest lecturer at a wide variety of film and screenwriting programs, including those at UCLA TFT, USC, NYU, and Pepperdine. He has served as a mentor for the Act One Screenwriting Program.

Alex Wirth

Adjunct Professor of Creative Writing

Alex Wirth has a Bachelor's Degree in English from University of California, Santa Cruz, a Master of Divinity from McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of California, Riverside Palm Desert Low Residency Program. He teaches literature and writing at the university level around San Diego and works in an elementary school library. He is currently querying a novel and polishing a poetry collection. He lives in the San Diego neighborhood of Point Loma with his wife, daughter, dog and tortoise.

Courtney Moorehead Balaker

Professor & Chair of Film

Prof. Balaker is an award-winning filmmaker, theatre director, and co-founder of Korchula Productions. Courtney wrote, directed, and produced Little Pink House, an award-winning feature film about Susette Kelo’s historic fight to save her home and neighborhood. The film stars two-time Academy Award nominee Catherine Keener (Get Out) and Emmy nominee Jeanne Tripplehorn (Grey Gardens). It has won a variety of awards including the HBO Audience Award at the Provincetown International Film Festival and the Vail Film Festival Audience Award. Additional film and television credits include Can We Take A Joke?, The Coddling of the American Mind, and America in Primetime, an award-winning PBS documentary series including interviews with Ron Howard, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Alec Baldwin.

She began her film career at Neo Art & Logic, a feature film production company with an overall deal with Dimension Films where she developed new screenplays and went on to serve as Vice President of Development. She spent five years in New York City directing Off-Broadway plays, working with actors such as George Morfogen (HBO's Oz) and Joseph Gorden-Levitt (Inception). Her theater credits include works at SoHo Playhouse, Ensemble Studio Theater, and Theater for the New City.

Courtney holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Colorado at Denver and a master’s degree in theatre directing from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and King’s College London where she received classical acting and theater directing training under the leadership of Fiona Shaw and Lord Richard Attenborough.