Ella Ray is a writer, editor, and a full-spectrum doula based in Portland, Oregon. Ray’s antidisiciplinary practice is indebted to a cosmology of radical black women cultural workers who were, and continue to be, unwavering in their commitments to craft and liberation.

They are currently the Associate Editor of Variable West, where Ray has aided the development of an editorial program that embraces substantive and accessible arts criticism from non-traditional writers. 

Through practices of public scholarship and printmaking, Ray’s independent work seeks to carve out space for everyday people to cultivate literacy and engage in meaningful cultural criticism. 

In 2025, Ray self-published Annotating at the end of the world: a research and reading refresher, a zine of practical reading comprehension strategies, in addition to a zine on black disabled refusal called Sumatriptan.