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.

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 ))). Her background in music and performance informs her attention to rhythm, tension, and the subtleties of character: how silence changes a scene, how emotion inhabits a body, and how an unguarded gesture can betray an otherwise convincing performance.

Beyond the arts, Mona works in social services as a crisis interventionist for the youth in Southern California. She hopes to bring her creative experience into work with young people navigating difficult circumstances, helping them explore art as a means of expression, discovery, and finding agency in 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.