Ayun Halliday

Ayun Halliday is an American writer and actor.

She is best known as the author and illustrator (or, as Halliday herself terms it, "the chief primatologist") of the long-running zine The East Village Inky. The zine got its name from Halliday's living in New York City's East Village, and "Inky" being the nickname of her then-infant daughter India.

Her first graphic novel, Peanut, was published in December 2012 and was positively reviewed by The New York Times.

Early life Halliday was born in Indianapolis, Indiana. She attended Park Tudor School and Northwestern University, where she obtained a degree in theater performance. She is also a licensed massage therapist, who completed her training at the Chicago School of Massage Therapy. After graduating, she joined the Neo-Futurists, an experimental theater troupe in Chicago. It was during her tenure with the troupe that she met her husband, playwright Greg Kotis.

Personal life She lives in East Harlem, New York. She and Kotis have two children: India (born 1997) and Milo (born 2000).

Halliday and Kotis are co-founders of Theater of the Apes.

Halliday created and hosts Necromancers of the Public Domain, a monthly performance series in New York City, wherein a dusty book from the New York Society Library is turned in a low budget variety show.

Published books The Big Rumpus (published in the UK as Mama Lama Ding Dong) (2002) No Touch Monkey! And Other Travel Lessons Learned Too Late (2003) Job Hopper (2005) Dirty Sugar Cookies: Culinary Observations, Questionable Taste (2006) Always Lots of Heinies at the Zoo (2009) The Zinester's Guide to NYC (2010) Peanut (2012) Creative, Not Famous: The Small Potato Manifesto (2022) Creative, Not Famous Activity Book (2023) Panther City: Tales of a Gen X Grade 3 Class Project Run Amok (2025)

Plays Farang (1992) Bagel: Anatomy as Simile (1994) Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind (1989-1998) The Mermaid's Legs (2014) Fawnbook (2015) Zamboni Godot (2017) Nurse! (2018)