Tonya Todd is a Las Vegas author, actress, screenwriter, and producer. Born in Pennsylvania, she plunged into Sin City, young enough to immerse herself in bright lights, big city, and bigger dreams.
Tonya is invested in Own Voices and fair representation in both the literary and cinematic worlds she inhabits. During her four years on the board of Henderson Writers Group, she spearheaded education for authors at all levels and staffed the Las Vegas Writers Conference. Her continued involvement in writing, theatre, and filmmaking communities provides a platform to champion marginalized artists and contributes toward an environment that embraces a variety of voices.
As host of The 52 Love Podcast, she interviewed a myriad of creatives dedicated to celebrating love and art in all its forms. Via Femme On Podcast, Tonya promotes advocacy on Active Activism and women’s health on Femme On Fitness. She hosts Dime Grinds, a monthly author meet-and-greet, and discusses censorship on the annual Banned Books Conversations series. Her appearances this year include moderating First-Page Panels at Las Vegas Writer’s Conference, teaching Literary Citizenship and How to Write with Diversity and Inclusion at the Atlanta Writers Conference, and hosting the 2023 Vegas Film, Author, and Photography Festival.
Tonya plays Cleopatra in Bard at the Bar’s Shakespearean mash-up Caesar & Cleopatra, Laura in the award-winning Wild Within, and Arabella in New Normal, a short film she co-wrote and filmed during the 2020 lockdown. For details on the upcoming Dark Angels: The Demon Pit, Hell’s Coming for You, and Rogue Angel, follow her IMDb page at imdb.me/TonyaTodd.
In between acting, serving as co-chair for The LGBTQ Writer Workshop, and reading submissions for Black Mountain Institute’s literary publication, Witness, Tonya works as a freelance editor and sensitivity reader. Her non-fiction is featured in NPR’s Desert Companion magazine. She also has short stories in Tales from the Silver State IV, Authors Portraits LV, and the Huntington Press Collection Love in the Dunes.