Artist Statement
I am a Los Angeles-born writer and artist exploring the tension between visibility and erasure, function and flourishing, survival and tenderness. My work centers queer, neurodivergent, and Latinx lives shaped by institutional neglect and intimate resistance.
Drawing from years of community work and my own lived experience, I create stories that speak to displacement, identity, and transformation in cities fractured by power but full of sacred moments.
Through fiction, I examine the systems that shape us—mental health care, education, migration, memory—and how those systems can obscure or distort our humanity. My characters often navigate altered states: psychosis, ritual, repression, awakening. But they are not cautionary tales. They are witnesses. Survivors. Transfigured.
As both a writer and visual artist, I seek to carve emotional openings in the concrete. My aim is not to offer answers but to hold space for the unseen, the miscategorized, and the deeply felt.
Works in Progress
Angeleños Anthology (Manuscript)
A collection of interconnected stories about those surviving the cracks in the city.
From institutionalized minds navigating psychiatric triage in a post-pandemic world (Automaton), to children shaped by racialized schooling and silence (Rust), to lovers defying structural violence with tenderness (Hemlock), these narratives form a complex portrait of Los Angeles as both battleground and sanctuary.
Rooted in queer, migrant, and working-class experiences, Angeleños Anthology weaves emotional testimony with political critique, without losing sight of the absurd, the sacred, and the intimate.
More projects coming soon.
Contact me for excerpts, readings, or pre-publication interest.
Selected Highlights
Contact
I’d love to connect.
Whether you're a fellow writer, a community organizer, a reader who saw themselves in a sentence, or a publisher interested in my work, reach out.
- 📩 Email: [email protected]
- 📍 Location: Los Angeles, CA
- 📷 Instagram: @annavaleriagaribay