Maria Breaux is a San Francisco filmmaker, playwright, and writer whose work has spanned more than two decades. Her films, including Vulveeta and Lucha, received Frameline Audience Awards, while her feature Mother Country premiered at the American Black Film Festival and won Best Independent Low-Budget Feature at WorldFest-Houston. She has written, directed, produced, and acted across film, theater, solo performance, sketch comedy, and music. Her play The Mark Ten’s Fantastic Parade earned a Theatre Bay Area First-Place New Works Fund Grant, and she is a two-time Highsmith Playwriting Award winner. Beyond the arts, Maria is a veteran marketing writer whose clients include the Greater Good Science Center, Common Sense Media, ITVS, and Pinterest. She holds an MFA in Playwriting from San Francisco State University and a BA in English from Stanford University. Maria is currently writing Compassion Guy, a braided memoir inspired by the life and murder of her brother, David Breaux, known as "the Compassion Guy" in Davis, California. The project has received support from the San Francisco Arts Commission, Hedgebrook, Community of Writers, and Lighthouse Writers Workshop, and was longlisted for the 2025 CRAFT Memoir Essay and Excerpt Contest, guest judged by Roxane Gay.