Jason M Buss

Jason M. Buss writes the kind of stories that linger in a room after the lights go out — queer love affairs tangled up with ghosts, gothic inheritances, slasher-movie sets, and the particular ache of wanting someone you were never supposed to want. Born and raised in Detroit, he now lives in Harlem, New York, with his orange cat, Alexis, who supervises most first drafts from the nearest available surface.

Jay writes across genres — gothic horror, contemporary romance, YA, dark fantasy, literary fiction — but his books share a pulse: queer men falling in love in places that weren't built to hold them, and finding a way to stay anyway. His Detroit roots run through much of the work, from the manicured lawns of Grosse Pointe to the city's restless, neon-lit edges, and from his father and brother's lifelong devotion to baseball, which finds its way onto the page again and again — fastballs and heartbreak running on the same clock.

An independent author, Jay handles every part of bringing a book into the world himself: writing, editing, cover design, formatting, and the long, unglamorous work of getting a story in front of readers who need it. He self-publishes through Amazon KDP, and considers that independence — total creative control, for better and worse — part of the point.

Writing, for Jay, has always been less a career than a sanctuary: a place to work through what real life doesn't give tidy endings to. His stories tend to start from something true and then go looking for the version of it that could only exist in fiction — a little more dangerous, a little more tender, a little more honest than the real thing usually allows.

When he's not writing, Jay can be found rewatching the same five horror movies, defending Detroit to people who've never been, and losing the occasional argument with Alexis about whose chair the laptop belongs on.

You can sign up to get updates about his writing here.