Liberal Arts Faculty

Shelley Costa Bloomfield

Title Adjunct Faculty
Department Liberal Arts
Phone 216.421.7000

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Courses  Creative Writing | Fiction Writing | Screenwriting

Degree PhD, English, Case Western Reserve University. Dissertation: The Brief and Crowded Hour: Studies in Narrative Suspense. M.A., English, Cleveland State University. B.A., English, Douglass College (Rutgers University).

Shelley' Costa's latest crime story, "Glock, Paper, Scissors," has been chosen for the upcoming anthology ODD PARTNERS (Random House, April 2019) from Mystery Writers of America. A 2004 Edgar Award nominee for Best Short Story, Shelley is the author of A Killer’s Guide to Good Works, Practical Sins For Cold Climates, Basil Instinct, and You Cannoli Die Once, a 2014 Agatha Award nominee for Best First Novel. Shelley’s mystery stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Blood on Their Hands,The World’s Finest Mystery and Crime Stories, and Crimewave (UK). With her academic specialty in literary modernism and 19^th century American literature, Shelley is the author of The Everything Guide to Edgar Allan Poe. She is a frequent panelist at mystery literature conventions and book festivals. www.shelleycosta.com

Courses  Basic Theories of Psychology | Jung + Creativity

Courses  Nature Poetry Before + After Darwin | Writing + Inquiry II: Research + Intellectual Traditions

Courses  Creative Writing | Poetry Writing Workshop

Courses  Anthropology | Prehispanic Civilizations: The Aztec, the Maya + the Inca

Scott Lax

Title Adjunct Faculty
Department Liberal Arts
Phone 216.421.7000

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Courses  Screenwriting

Degree BA, English: Hiram College

Scott Lax, called, "a master wordsmith of the first order," by The Midwest Book Review, has been a Bread Loaf Writers' Conference Bernard J. O'Keefe Scholar in Nonfiction and Sewanee Writers' Conference Walter E. Dakin Fellow in Fiction. Scott was presented with a Resolution of Congratulations for his body of work from Cleveland City Council in 2002, named the 2002 Midwest Filmmaker of the Year by the Cleveland International Film Festival, named to a list of Hiram College’s “Illustrious Alumni,” along with poet Vachel Lindsay, and elected to the Chagrin Falls High School Alumni Achievement Hall of Fame in 2016. The Denver Post called Scott’s first novel, The Year That Trembled, "powerful," and named it one of 1998’s "Milestones in Fiction.” The Midwest Book Review called his second novel, Vengeance Follows, “A minor masterpiece of suspense and human nature.” He’s a produced playwright, award-winning movie producer (for the adaptation of his first novel), short story and nonfiction writer, as well as a TV writer who’s written for ESPN and Comedy Central. Previous to teaching for CIA, Scott taught at University School and Hiram College, and is regularly on faculty at The Western Reserve Writers’ Conference. Scott’s also a professional drummer who's played with Bo Diddley, among others. He’s currently writing a screenplay adaptation of Vengeance Follows.

Courses  Children's Literature | Writing + Inquiry I: Basic Composition + Contemporary Ideas | Writing + Inquiry II: Research + Intellectual Traditions

Heath Patten

Title Adjunct Instructor
Department Liberal Arts
Phone 216.773.4138

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Degree Ph.D. candidate, A.B.D. in History of Art, The Ohio State University

M.A. in Anthropology, The Ohio State University

B.A. in Anthropology and History of Art, The Ohio State University

B.A. in History, The Ohio State University

He teaches Art and Design History I, Art and Design History II, Asian Art Survey, India: Culture & Society, and Art of East Asia. His research interests are ancient religions, ritual performances of the ancient Mediterranean basin, and the history of early photography and its use in archaeology. He is a published author, a professional photographer, and a professional archaeologist, who has been involved with the excavations of several sites in Ohio, Cyprus and Italy.

He is also the Curator of the Visual Resources Collection, Oberlin College Libraries, Oberlin College.