I used to work for a company on a full-time basis as a writer and I was recently fired. I asked the sales director politely if I could have access to the writing pieces that I created for the company. These pieces could not be used anywhere else for any other company's benifit and I only wanted them for use as samples when interviewing with other businesses.

At first I was only sent 3 out of around 75 pieces that I wrote and when I requested more I was completely ignored. Do I have any legal rights to these pieces that I wrote? I am in California.

If the pieces were written while you were an employee and for the benefit of the company, they belong to the company and they are not legally required to release them to you.

Did you not sign an intellectual property agreement when you hired on? That type of agreement is very common for creative-type employees and typically sets out who owns what (among other things).