Rae Jones is a 22-year-old writer based in Atlanta, Georgia focusing on intimate scripts with 2 to 3 characters in multi-genres as well as formats. Growing up in rural north Georgia, one of her first achievements was an essay on Hamlet which gained her admission as well as an academic scholarship to a college preparatory school an hour away by car. The child of two 40+ people who had already lost a child, grief nor death was ever a stranger to Rae in her life. A born writer, she writes through all times, both good and bad. Reflected in her work is the balance mirrored in life, moments of joy as well as heart-aching sorrow or loss side by side, that is the riddle of life she wishes to convey in her work. Like the tides it gives and it takes, when her sister passed in September of 2019 she set to work doing the one thing she could control, her writing. On the first page, she wrote the end scene to her Grand Prize Winning screenplay in a compact notebook looking out at the snowy Utah landscape munching on vending machine food in between running to locations to try and barter for a ticket into Sundance premieres as a snow drenched college kid. This spirit applies to all aspects of her life, as her father’s motto, “swing the bat”, keeps her in a constant state of movement/creation. If you don’t swing the bat you’ll never hit the ball, so what if you miss? You just keep swinging until finally, finally, you’ll hit that grand slam home run, whether it takes 8 tries or 8 billion, and it will be worth it. This is the mentality that has fostered Rae’s approach to humanity as well including the support of activist causes, which she feels strongly about. Never one to commit halfway, Rae Jones attended the protests of George Floyd’s killing in June in Atlanta and saw the smoke rising from the burning Wendy’s where Rayshard Brooks had been shot and killed. She has scars on her knuckles and arms that she considers badges of honor, like in all things in life she believes you must stand for what is right no matter the consequence. This commitment to progressive change is also seen in her work with scathing societal critiques playing a reoccurring role in almost all of her writing. She is currently working on a tv pilot with a focus on Syrian refugees as well as other immigrants in America and hopes to continue making projects to change hearts and minds with her stories.