Adrien Ramirez
Author | Journalist | Illustrator
2025 Writer in Residence for Young Readers at Porter Square Books in Cambridge, MA
⛦ More info ⛦
Adrien is a storyteller who's dedicated his life to the craft. He has pursued multiple forms of media including journalism, novel writing, games writing, and virtual reality design in order to tell stories in the most immersive manner possible.⛦ Coming Soon: A Hell of a Life: A Supernatural YA Novel ⛦
About
2025 Writer in Residence for Young Readers at Porter Square Books in Cambridge, MA | More infoIn Adrien's career, he has worked as an Interactive Experience and Game Designer for MIT's Game Lab, a Narrative Designer and Media Director for the Massachusetts Digital Games Institute, and a Senior Staff Writer of Computing for USA TODAY and other publications.He holds a Bachelor's of Science in Comparative Media Studies from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he specialized in video game design and interactive narrative to both practice and research the craft of storytelling in order to make a positive impact on society.He is grateful he has had a chance to use his knowledge and skill to bring a positive impact to others, and he hopes to continue to do so in as many ways as possible. He knows the value of both fiction and non-fiction in our culture, and he is always open to new opportunities.
Selected Illustrations
Writing
A Hell of a Life
An upcoming Young Adult horror novel for fans of Anne Rice
⛦
Porter Square Books Resident Pick for Young Readers
⛦
Other Creative Writing
Game Design & More
Little Grimm
Take control of Little Grimm, an adorable reaper-in-training, who must save the kind souls wandering through the treacherous woods.In this snake-like collect-a-thon, traverse through an endless amount of ever-changing stages, collecting a wide variety of souls while avoiding the trail of souls following you. Can you help Little Grimm become the best reaper-in-training?✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ☽ - FEATURES - ☾ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧🌙 SHARE YOUR SCORE ONLINE and show your friends who the best reaper really is.🌙 GAZE AT THE ADORABLY SPOOKY ART which brings the characters and world of Little Grimm to life.🌙 EACH PLAYTHROUGH WILL BE A NEW EXPERIENCE. Explore a never-ending amount of stages, procedurally generated with new souls, barriers, and hazards every time you play.
Birth & Origins of Mass VR
FLY THROUGH THE COSMOS, STRAIGHT TO THE HEART OF OUR UNIVERSE. In this Windows virtual reality docu-game, you are a music conductor, and you must orchestrate mass and matter into existence by timing your movements to the tune of life itself.Origins of Mass VR is a title developed with VR industry leaders and Knight Journalism Fellows at MIT to explore meaningful storytelling in games. The game explores high-level physics concepts and breaks them down into a playful and interactive educational experience for all ages.
Availability & Contact
I'm open for work in journalism, writing, games, and art.Editorial work (PC articles, gaming articles, book reviews, product reviews, copywriting, editing, publishing, promotional content, etc.)Technical writing (computing, hardware, software, user manuals)Media & content creation (blog posts, articles, short videos / TikToks, short stories, interactive web games and experiences, game writing)Art and digital illustration work (character design, character art, game art, comics, promotional materials, book illustrations, fantasy/anime styles)If you have any other opportunities you'd like to discuss, please email [email protected] to get in touch!Note: Please do not inquire about NFTs or generative AI-based work. I do not use either in my work nor do I plan on changing that anytime soon.
A Hell of a Life
An upcoming Young Adult horror novel for fans of Anne Rice
According to Heaven, Andras Martinez should have never existed. Born of the unholy union between a witch and a demon, the halfling was either doomed to die by Heaven’s hands or destined to transcend into a demon himself. Instead of teaching Andras how to protect himself until he could transcend, his mother Gabriela raised him as a normal New England kid. That didn’t stop Andras from practicing magic behind her back.He promised himself he would quit using dark magic to win poker matches once he started his freshman year of college. Then his mother died. Now that Andras was eighteen, he had to pay her debts if he wanted to keep his childhood home. His absent father wouldn’t rise from Hell to help him anytime soon.On the night of Gabriela’s funeral service, a mysterious figure came to collect the grimoire they lent to her almost twenty years ago. Only a fool would make a deal with a demon, but how could Andras refuse the silver-tongued stranger when they offered to pay off his million-dollar mortgage (and keep him safe from Heaven’s executioners)? All it would cost Andras was indefinite servitude to the great king Asmodeus, Lucifer’s left hand and the notorious master of gambling.
A Hell of a Life is an LGBT+ supernatural horror Young Adult (YA) novel about Andras Martinez, an eighteen-year-old transgender boy with a witch mother, a deadbeat divine father, and now a lonely, conniving demon determined to drag him to Hell for eternity. Will Asmodeus successfully convince him to transcend to demonhood, or would Andras rather live out a “normal” life with his best (and totally 100% platonic) friend Coda on Earth once Asmodeus finds what they’re looking for? Andras must decide what he wants before Heaven’s executioners can erase his existence.Andras’s snarky voice and spiteful character drive this horrific, absurd story that will appeal to fans of Anne Rice, Aiden Tomas, Andrew Joseph White, and Neil Gaiman. Despite Heaven and Hell’s sinister efforts, Andras’s journey is not another horror story where queer people of color are destined to fail.I’m a tranmasc Latine service journalist, writer, and artist who works in the Boston metro area. In 2019, I graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a bachelor’s degree in media studies and a minor in creative writing. I’m writing the book I wish I had when I was a teenager: a campy horror story about a transmasc Latine person who learns to love every part of himself. A Hell of a Life is my first novel.You can read a sample at my Authory page.
Tahlequah: A Poem
If you'd like to see this poem in person, please visit the Images, Then Words exhibit at the Menino Arts Center in Hyde Park, MA before February 14. It accompanies the beautiful hand-stitched piece "Whale" by Mary Herman.
This poem is dedicated to Tahlequah, the orca who carried her calf over a thousand miles in a show of grief. Climate change has made it harder than ever for orcas to live to adulthood. Please consider donating to a conservation fund like the Wildlife Conservation Society, the World Wildlife Fund, or the Nature Conservancy.
Tahlequah - 39 - Adrien Ramirez
The crisp air of Puget Sound,
soft blue bathes shore and mountain alike
Rainforests, banana slugs crawling
by ancient cedars and evergreen firs
Life blossoms in the coldest cracks of landSalmon race up the river to their birthplace
Unhatched eggs protected by rotting flesh
The octopus hunts in the sea
wise and graceful and powerful
but only a couple years allowed to liveAmong our kind, mother and father grow
As old as humans and larger than ships
Yet we do not seem to be blessed with life
Our numbers hardly grow and our babes die young
The ocean stifles our strengthMy first son was gone as soon as he came,
And you, my sweet daughter
light of my life in my quarter century of time
By the fin and on my head I carried you alive
one final voyage a thousand miles
to rest where I was bornIn our pod, tightly stitched, each are loved for a lifetime
Whether that be 80 years or 80 secondsWhen I become dust on the sand
and my bones feed the fish,
I hope we can swim together
in the sunless sea once more