author, performer, multi-disciplinary artist

Mona Ray is a Filipina writer, movement artist, and lifelong child of the arts whose work explores surrealism, survival, and the contradictions that make people compelling. Her creative instincts found early expression in fiction and music: a short story earned her an award in fourth grade, and by eleven, she had advanced from sixth chair to first in her viola section. Naturally, she interpreted these developments as encouragement.

Throughout her teenage years and twenties, she trained in dance while pursuing independent filmmaking, directing and starring in music videos and leading a team of dancers whose performances she brought to the screen or stage. Working on both sides of the camera deepened her interest in how stories take shape through movement, imagery, and the choices a performer makes before speaking a word.

Today, her practice spans published fiction and poetry, film, movement, and visual art. She has taught movement storytelling at Stanford University and coached artists including ((( O ))).

Beyond the arts, Mona works in social services as a crisis interventionist serving young people in Southern California. Having navigated a difficult adolescence herself, she holds a particular tenderness for young people whose struggles are too often mistaken for who they are. Throughout her work, she has drawn on her creative experience to help young people express themselves, discover their abilities, and recognize that they have a voice in shaping their own stories.

Her fiction favors dark humor, psychological tension, and characters capable of both remarkable tenderness and calculated ruthlessness—often with a perfectly articulate defense of both. Her forthcoming novel, Rhythm & Ruin, is planned for independent publication in January 2027.

Mona is pursuing opportunities in writing, performance, story development, and producing. She welcomes conversations with mental health advocates, filmmakers, casting professionals, literary agents, and creative collaborators drawn to ambitious, character-driven work. She brings an ear for dialogue, an eye for physical storytelling, and an inconvenient interest in what everyone else would rather leave unsaid.

Follow @MonaTheRaven for current projects and creative inquiries.

“I am the master of my universe, and I am in the business of telling stories.”