Ashleigh Ann Gardner is a Missouri-born and Orlando-based playwright, dramaturge, and composer. She earned her M.A. in Literary, Cultural, and Textual Studies from the University of Central Florida, with primary concentrations in Victorian and Gothic literature, psychoanalytic theory, and gender studies. Her work largely explores the human condition and philosophic dilemmas using genre-based narrative styles like science fiction, thriller, and horror. In 2019, her play QUALIA won a $5,000 playwriting grant from New Generation Theatrical and has been produced in Chicago, Orlando, and The Villages, FL. It had its Off-Broadway industry reading in March of 2025. Her solo play, The Not: a Midwestern Gothic Horror, premiered at Timucua Arts Foundation in January of 2023. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America, and her work can be read on The New Play Exchange.