HALIYA MAY
"The obstacle is the way." —Marcus Aurelius
I’m Haliya May, a Filipina-Black author who grew up in a blur of contradictions: too much of one thing, not enough of another, a curious doll to others. I learned early how to disappear into the background or twist myself into something more palatable. I don’t do that anymore.
I write what I couldn’t find on the shelves—dark, smutty, high-stakes love stories where women like me weren’t softened, sacrificed, or shoved to the sidelines. Stories where we lead, kneel, conquer, crave—and still walk away whole. Because, seriously, what was the point of Evelyn in the movie Annabelle except as a sacrifice. (yeah, I said it)
Family Legacy:
I come from a legacy of rhythm and rebellion. My father was one of the original members of Lakeside, the iconic funk band behind hits like “Fantastic Voyage.” He stayed close to bandmates Marvin Craig, Stephen Shockley, and Fred Alexander, Jr. until his passing in 2022. And long before that, Jimmie Lunceford—my first cousin three times removed—was an acclaimed swing-era jazz bandleader whose orchestra rivaled Ellington’s and Basie’s. His legacy as a performer and pioneer in jazz education reminds me that art isn’t just performance. It’s protest. It’s passion. It’s presence.
Today, there are two active storytellers in my family—myself and my cousin, award-winning filmmaker Brittany Shyne. While her Sundance-recognized documentaries break ground on screen, I carve space in a genre that still sidelines women who look like me. My readers meet me on livestreams, in DMs, in their own reflections on the page. We’re not waiting to be invited to the table anymore—we’re building our own damn banquet and seasoning it like we mean it.
A Survivor Who Learned to Live:
Many elements of my books aren’t just imagined—they’re lived.
Carrie Bellerose’s strained relationship with her aunt and uncle in ENAMORED echoes my own experience with racial tensions in my extended family. I know what it’s like to be “too much” of one thing and “not enough” of another, to be watched like a threat in the same rooms you were raised to believe were safe. That constant code-switching, the hunger to be seen without being dissected—it all lives in Carrie’s pages.
Like Nicole in DOMINATED, I became a single mom in my early twenties. I married a man who wasn’t my child’s father, hoping to rewrite my story. But what followed was years of emotional and verbal abuse—gaslighting, control masked as concern, and an aching silence that took me far too long to crawl out of. Nicole’s strength, her refusal to let that pain define her, and her second chance at real love? That’s the rewrite I gave myself in fiction first.
Eva’s estrangement from her mother in SAVAGE DEVOTION didn’t come from nowhere either. My own fallout was years in the making, tangled in manipulation, projection, and unresolved generational trauma. Eva’s story isn’t mine verbatim—but the sting of a mother’s absence when she’s right there in the room? That’s a wound I know well.
When Carrie breaks after her father’s death in ENAMORED VOLUME 2, it wasn’t just her grieving—it was me. I wrote those chapters with my hands shaking and my heart ripped open. My father was the one constant in a house that often felt like a storm. His death in 2022 shattered something in me I’m still trying to name. I let Carrie say the words I couldn’t say out loud. I let her fall apart so I could, too.
And then there’s Billie, in INFINITELY HIS. She’s the closest reflection of who I was at my lowest—raised under the volatile shadow of a mentally ill mother, constantly bracing for the next eruption. Like me, she refers to her mother by her first name—Nanette—because sometimes, survival means distance. Billie spirals through self-destruction the way I did: clinging to sex, alcohol, and rebellion to feel something, anything. That wasn’t imagination. That was memory, inked in defiance. It was who I became when I didn’t know how to process pain.
But there’s a deeper layer—the quiet, lingering kind of trauma that hides behind a single look. When I was nine, Harold James never touched me. He didn’t have to. The way he looked at me gutted something sacred. It was a look that taught me to fear the gaze of older men for most of my life. A look that told me I wasn’t safe. And though both of my parents believed me, and my father did everything to shield me—warned me never to get in a car with that man, made sure I was never in the room when they spoke, ensured I lived elsewhere during visits—none of it could prepare me for what happened after my father died.
My mother married him.
I remember pleading over the phone, sobbing as I begged her not to choose him. Of all people, not him. Her response? She slut-shamed me. Victim-blamed me. Told me that if a man looked at me like that when I was nine, it was my fault for wearing what I wore.
I was nine.
And still—when she needed me, I came. I packed up my family, drove across state lines, and showed up. Because that’s what daughters do. But when the anniversary of my father’s death rolled around and I brought up what she had said—what she had done—she laughed. Laughed at the memory. Laughed at my pain.
Unlike Billie and Nanette, who eventually find a fractured peace, my mother and I haven’t spoken since.
Billie’s story may be fiction, but the ache is real. Writing her gave me the courage to stop explaining my pain and start claiming it. Because sometimes the worst betrayals come not from strangers, but from the people who were supposed to protect you—and the only way to survive is to write a new ending. One where you aren’t just heard. You are believed. And you are free.
These stories aren’t just about trauma. They’re about taking it back. About turning pain into power, shame into intimacy, and survival into something that feels like a crown.
Because fiction lets me tell the truth without being interrupted.
Mounting My Victories in Tradition:
You can imagine—being mixed growing up wasn’t easy. My self-identity felt like a puzzle I couldn’t quite piece together. But my favorite memory, the one that grounded me, was a quiet afternoon with my Lola. She was visiting us in Virginia and must have sensed that something was weighing on me. I finally admitted to her that I didn’t think I looked Filipino enough—and that some kids at school didn’t believe my mom was really my mom.
She didn’t miss a beat. She placed her arm on the kitchen table, told me to put mine next to hers, and said, “Look at your skin. Look at my skin. You are just as much Filipino as I am. You are from proud former headhunting people. We don’t headhunt anymore—but you will mount your victories in the same tradition.”
And that’s what I do.
With Mississippi red in my skin and Mount Pinatubo lava in my veins, I write heroines who feel real. Women who bruise and beg, who destroy and forgive. Who survive trauma and still dare to be worshipped. I write from my scars and my survival. Each book I publish is a reclamation—not just of pleasure and pain, but of narrative. And best of all? My heroines never need their partners to survive. They choose them.
I love what I do. I love connecting with readers who crave depth, danger, and devotion. But the moment that stuck with me forever? When a reader looked me in the eye and said, “Your book made me feel real for the first time in years.” That was everything. That’s why I do this. When readers thank me for creating a world that feels wide enough, rich enough, true enough—no matter their background or skin tone—it feels like rain made of confetti.
Because my stories aren’t about being just one thing. They’re not exclusive to one identity, one experience, one kind of love. They’re layered. Messy. Beautiful. And they’re for anyone bold enough to turn the page and dive into the dark with me.