author feature: April May Jay
April May Jay is the third place winner from our 2025 Manuscript Challenge!
AUTHOR BIO
I write young adult stories about monsters, magic, and mountains. I spent my childhood traipsing up peaks in the dark with my aspiring photographer dad to get the perfect sunrise shots, and I’m still obsessed with watching light emerge from the darkness—both in nature and ourselves.
What first drew you to fantasy as a genre?
I would say growing up with fairy tales means my childhood, like most people’s, was steeped in fantasy. That love and wonder grew with me over the years. Fantasy is a genre of exaggeration. Emotions, conflicts, elements of beauty and awe in our natural world, they’re all heightened in fantasy. I appreciate that.
Tell us about your creative process! Are you a plotter? Pantser? Something in between? What is your ideal writing environment?
I use a rough outline and end up totally overhauling it at least three times during the first draft. I can’t predict what directions the story will go in well enough to adhere to a strict outline, but I need some structure to keep myself on track, so this works well for me. I write in my quiet office with pictures of flowers bursting out of bones and organs hanging above my desk. I work from home in the medical field, so the pictures are also fitting for my job.
What parts of writing bring you the most joy?
Really diving deep into a particular emotion is super cathartic to me, whether that emotion is positive or negative. Scenes that are less dependent on emotion—especially transition or fight scenes—are my bane.
What authors inspire you most, and why?
Authors who blend genres, especially fantasy, paranormal, horror, and/or romance, but sometimes even sci-fi or contemporary. Holly Black will always be my fantasy queen. Sarah Rees Brennan is my bloody fantasy jester in Holly’s court. CG Drews makes me want to rot in a forest, which is great, and Robert Jackson Bennett amazes me with the depth of his worldbuilding and strong characterization. Naomi Novik could kill me and I wouldn’t even be mad. I love Aiden Thomas’s unique fantasies and Heather Fawcett’s everything, I would drink tea for her and I hate tea.
Do you have writing favorites when it comes to trope, characters, magic system, etc?
I’m not a super trope-y person, but I can like pretty much any of them if they’re backed up by depth of characterization. I particularly love soft boys and feral girls as main characters (paired up, on their own, queer, all of it). When it comes to magic, I want everything. Though I can do without time travel most of the time.
What’s one piece of writing advice that has stuck with you?
Neal Shusterman has shared the story of how his college professor forced him to write only realistic fiction for a while because you have to be able to write a good realistic story before you can tackle speculative worldbuilding. I think that’s very good advice and has helped me tremendously over the years.
What are your goals as a writer? Where would you like to see yourself in 5 years?
The book for the contest is currently out with beta readers, then I’ll have sensitivity readers. I’m gearing up to query next, and I’m reasonably hopeful about getting an agent this year. In five years, hopefully I have at least one book published, and maybe I’ll have folded the laundry by then, too.
Where can people go to support you and follow your writing journey?
Check out my website for a short story prequel to my upcoming book! Meet Mags and Shiloh, a set of siblings trying to survive in a forest steeped in death magic that drives the residents murderously insane. Then meet them again in Pastel Death, where the pacifistic community of necromancers they’ve settled in starts acting suspiciously like the people in that forest…
