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Biography April graduated from the Bronx High School of Science where she was both an editor of the literary magazine and manager of the boys varsity baseball team - two interests which seem to have merged years later in the writing of her novel, BE THE ONE (Knopf), a thriller about the only woman baseball scout in the major leagues. April and her co-managers at Bronx Science were pioneers as well: It was so unusual for girls to manage a boys varsity team, they were written up in the New York Post. (There was no varsity sports program for girls at that time.) As an English major at Boston University it was natural for April to gravitate toward the radical campus newspaper, The BU News, where she remained on the editorial board all four years. She loved the freedom of living in Boston and soon became part of the literary scene. Her first professional job was as a freelancer for a music rag called Fusion, for which she interviewed Tim Hardin, The Moody Blues, and others. It was very cool. She got backstage passes and free records! She was part of the creation of an alternative weekly newspaper, The Cambridge Phoenix, becoming its first city editor. By the time she graduated, cum laude and With Distinction in English Literature, April had something of a portfolio of published articles. The turning point in her life as a writer came when April was accepted to the Creative Writing Program at Stanford University, directed by Richard Scowcroft. She was very fortunate to study under Tillie Olsen, who suggested she send a short story she had written as part of her thesis to The Atlantic Monthly. "Sailing" appeared as an Atlantic First, a prestigious debut for a new writer. April celebrated by getting everyone in the writing program drunk. It was a very heady and talented group; many went on to publish famously, including Scott Turow, Michael Rogers, Tom Zigal, Fred Pheil, Chuck Kinder, Robert Roth, Alan Boatman, Glenn Godfrey, Hunt Hawkins and Don Paul. April also organized the Creative Writing Softball Team. (Is there a theme emerging here?) April left Stanford having secured a Masters Degree in Creative Writing and her first New York literary agent, but more than that, she now knew she was a writer. She returned to Cambridge, Massachusetts to work on a novel. She tried to get a job in the time-honored writerly tradition of bartending, but restaurant owners found the idea laughable. She supported herself by temping as a medical and legal typist, writing reviews and feature articles. She received a fellowship at MacDowell Colony to finish the book, but when it was rejected, she resigned herself to getting a real, full-time job as a advertising copywriter for a small agency, Patrick Nugent and Company. Under April's somewhat screwball leadership, the creative team won the Hatch Award, New England's equivalent of the Clio, beating out powerful agencies many times their size. They won for a radio campaign, "Dial An Oxford Pickle Joke," for which massive phone banks were installed so pickle fans from across New England could call to hear April's brother, the comedy historian Ronald Smith, tell sixty seconds of original jokes about gherkins. It was another turning point in her life. April came out to Los Angeles on a visit and never left. Within a year she had written a two-hour pilot for NBC based on her short story, "Sailing," seen her first episodic script aired on television, and met her future husband, Douglas Brayfield. Television jobs followed rapidly. She has been Executive Consultant on LOU GRANT, Producer on CAGNEY AND LACEY and, most recently, Producer on CHICAGO HOPE. She has been writer/producer of six acclaimed television movies and a miniseries: Best Kept Secrets starring Patty Duke Astin; Ernie Kovacs: Between the Laughter starring Jeff Goldblum; Love Lives On with Mary Stuart Masterson, Christine Lahti and Sam Waterston; Taking Back My Life: The Nancy Ziegenmeyer Story starring Patricia Wettig; The Taking of Pelham One Two Three starring Edward Olmos; and Black and Blue, the adaptation of the novel by Anna Quindlen, starring Mary Stuart Masterson and Anthony LaPaglia; and Queenie, a miniseries. April's work in television has received three Emmy Award nominations and two Writer's Guild nominations. You can learn more about her television career by clicking here. During the Writers Guild strike of 1988 April decided to go back to her roots and write fiction. The result, five years later, was her first novel, NORTH OF MONTANA, a thriller about a woman FBI agent, published by Knopf. Her second novel, BE THE ONE will be published July 2000. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two children. |
