Founder of MCSFO – The Multicultural Sci-fi Organization and organizer of The Atlanta Sci-fi Film Festival, and Kids with S.T.E.A.M. children’s sci-fi film festival, Amanda Ray is providing many platforms for sci-fi creatives.

Born and raised in New York City, Amanda Ray relocated to Atlanta in 1993 to study music at Georgia State University School of Music and then began a decade long music career.  During that time, Ms. Ray lived abroad in London for half a year, before returning to New York to continue her career in music.

Said to be the first African-American female science fiction film festival director, Amanda Ray was born into science fiction.  After returning back to Atlanta a second time, she had an idea for an album based on a science fiction story she started writing.  But after traveling across town to meetup groups to find sci-fi writers to collaborate with, she decided to start her own group closer to home.  And unlike most of the SF groups she used to attend, that were predominately white male, she envisioned an all inclusive, diverse group, where people of all ethnicities, genders and sexualities can come and share their love of sci-fi.   This lead to the Multicultural Sci-fi Meet-up group, which quickly turned into the MCSFO organization. MCSFO is a marketing company that promotes science fiction intellectual property. This organization produces the Atlanta Sci-fi Film Festival and Kids with S.T.E.A.M., as well as other screening activation marketing events.  Their appropriate tagline is, One Language:  SCI-FI!  Through the festival and MCSFO, Ms. Ray has worked with large companies such as: IMAX, HBO, Google Fiber, Cartoon Network and GA Tech to name a few.

Ms. Ray explains, “Science Fiction is one of the most powerful tools you can use to help broaden people’s understanding of the past, the present and how we perceive and conceive of our future!  It’s a perfect playground to explore and challenge theories in science, technology, social issues and understand who we are as an evolving species.”