By Abigail Jump

Red Fern Press, a subsidiary of Steph West Media, is delighted to welcome author C.J. Maylock to its roster and announce her upcoming novel, The English Department Vs Chaos and Nonsense, releasing in 2027. 

Maylock knows exactly how powerful language can be. Born and raised in Ohio, she knew early on she wanted to work with words.

“In second grade, the teacher had us do this project where we kind of wrote a fake book and read it to the kindergarteners,” said Maylock. “Ever since then, I knew I wanted to be a writer.”

And now her dream is coming true with the release of her darkly humorous, sci-fi / cosmic horror novel next year. Maylock’s debut was inspired by her other — and first — career: teaching.

“I’m very much motivated by my students because a lot of them don’t have creative outlets at home,” Maylock explained of her high school language arts classroom. “They might go home to terrible parents or just bad home lives, and a lot of them turn to the arts. Many of them are writers, too. Just reading these creative things they wrote really inspired me.”

Through her discussions with students and the literature she was teaching, her fire to chase her dream of becoming an author reignited. Her classroom was where the first pieces of The English Department Vs Chaos and Nonsense began to take shape.

Yet, unlike the very real inspiration she found from her work life, Maylock found a great muse in a very unlikely place: children’s cartoons. Rewatching The Fairly OddParents as an adult, Maylock was struck at just how villainized the teacher characters were.

“I’m a teacher; I love my students. I’d do anything for my students. I want them to succeed. I don’t want to give them F’s or anything like that. So, I’m like, I need to portray teachers in a better way,” shared Maylock, adding that the rest of the story came to her in crashes of brilliance. Or sometimes, by eccentric, random dreams that fit together into scenes of the story.

The English Department Vs Chaos and Nonsense follows three high school English teachers who gain the power to close interdimensional rifts to save their students. The trio must balance their cool, cosmic adventures with their teaching responsibilities and make sure their lesson plans are turned in to the principal by Monday. The book additionally features queer, central characters — something that Maylock has a profound connection to.

“I think that queer educators often are not talked about. A lot of the time, it’s more ‘hush-hush’ when you’re queer and also a teacher, at least in my experience. I think that it’s a good thing to know that, you know, there are queer teachers out there, and it’s fine,” Maylock said. “You can be a queer teacher. Especially with a lot of laws in Ohio about books and what can be taught in classrooms, it can feel like you’re not allowed to be a queer teacher, but you can be.”

Representation matters greatly to Maylock — it’s what drew her to Red Fern Press and their mission to amplify women’s voices and stories.

“I teach a lot of the classics and, unfortunately, there aren’t many strong female figures that I’m teaching consistently,” said Maylock. “So I really appreciate publishing that focuses on strong women.”

When she’s not in the classroom, Maylock enjoys playing video games and spending time with her wife, her basset hound, Ducky, and Ducky’s pet snake, Waffle. Nothing brings her more joy than making someone else laugh. For future readers of The English Department Vs Chaos and Nonsense, she hopes they all find something within the story that brings them joy. But she anticipates teachers will relate the most. 

“A lot of the themes involve teachers using their students as motivation to become better people,” said Maylock. “I know I do that, and my coworkers do that as well. I can imagine that many other teachers also use their students to push them to better themselves.” 

You can read more about C.J. Maylock and The English Department Vs Chaos and Nonsense here on the Red Fern Press website.

Follow Red Fern Press here, on Instagram at @redfernpress, or on Facebook at @StephWestMedia, for future announcements and release dates.