April Mae Berza

April Mae M. Berza is the author of If I could only stop the downpour of the hourglass (Amazon KDP, 2025), The Mother's Day Pillow Surprise of Flowers and Rhymes (Draft2Digital, 2026), Singing and Dancing in the Rain (Draft2Digital, 2026), Forest Friends Take the Stage (Draft2Digital, 2026), Kitten Adventure in Friendship Park (Draft2Digital, 2026), A Cloud Called Nimbus (Draft2Digital, 2026), A Magical Crayon Comes to Life (Draft2Digital, 2026), Best Friend of the Class Introvert (Draft2Digital, 2026), Proud (Draft2Digital, 2026), Spoon (Draft2Digital, 2026), The Cloud Who Became a Heart (Draft2Digital, 2026), The Sleepy Sun and the Bouncy Moon (Draft2Digital, 2026), The "Wrong-Foot" Adventures of my Sock (Draft2Digital, 2026), etc. Her poems and short stories appeared in numerous literary publications in America, France, Canada, Belgium, Romania, India, Japan, Great Britain, and the Philippines. She is a prolific professional in Hollywood where she localizes subtitles for films, TV shows, documentaries, and animations for global streaming platforms such as Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, HBO, AppleTV+, Sony Pictures Enterainment, Paramount, Hulu, etc. She also localized awardwinning children's books for an international publisher. Her poems are translated into Crimean Tatar and Filipino. Some of her poems are published in the Philippines Graphic Reader, Liwayway, Belleville Park Pages, Haiku Journal, The Siren, Poetica, Three Line Poetry, Calliope, Maganda, Metric Conversions, Ani, The Manila Times, Letters to my Bully, Remembering Rizal, Voices from the Diaspora, Madswirl, The Stardust Gazette, The Riveter Review, Asahi Haikuist Network, Contemporary Verse 2, The Piker Press, impspired, Well Read magazine, Spillwords, and elsewhere. She used to work for the associate editor position of Toe Good. Her poem "E-Martial Law" was broadcast on IndoPacific Radio on KPFA 94.1FM/kpfa.org and her poem "A Page from History" was broadcast on WYCE Electric Poetry 88.1 FM. She is a member of the Poetic Genius Society. Her two haiku entries were featured in the 9th Yamadera Basho Memorial Museum English Haiku Contest, Selected Haiku Submissions Collection, July 2017. She received an Honorable Mention in the 19th HIA Haiku Contest and the 7th Akita Russia-Japan Haiku Contest. She got nominated for the Nick Joaquin Literary Awards 2023 for her poem Dale As I Explain to Him this Weird Thing Called Love. Moreover, she got invited to submit her life story to the Ellen DeGeneres show last 2012 since she got happily published in the Letters to my Bully (edited by Ifalade Ta’Shia Asanti and Azaan Kamau) which received significant critical acclaim. She currently resides in Taguig, Metro Manila, Philippines.