María Elena Morán (b. 1985, Maracaibo) is a Venezuelan writer and screenwriter based in Brazil. She has a degree in journalism from the Universidad del Zulia, studied screenwriting at the EICTV in Cuba, and holds a PhD in creative writing from the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul. She is the author of the novel Los Continentes del Adentro, and her second novel, Volver a cuándo, will be published in English by Knopf in 2026.