Ashley Mays is a children’s and young adult author who spent her childhood years in Michigan and her adolescence in Louisiana. She gained a love for reading and found solace in the stories she read while studying to become an early childhood educator. During her studies, she noticed the lack of minority representation in fictional stories and wanted to do something about it. She moved to New York City to pursue a MFA in Creative Writing for Children and Young Adults from The New School.

Ashley specializes in writing stories with accurate representation of minority protagonists with the goal of normalizing their unique characteristics. She’s an educator by day and a gamer by night, who enjoys performing improv and theater shows, laughing at her own jokes, and tasting foods she’s never tried before.