ABOUT J. O'NEILL

Here's what you need to know about me: I have always been feral about stories.

As a kid, I was the one staying up past midnight with a flashlight and a library book, completely wrecked by characters who didn't even exist. I grew up on a steady diet of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Stephen King — I'd read every single King novel before I turned twelve, which explains a lot about the darkness in my books and very little about how I turned out otherwise fine. I wrote my first "novel" at twelve — it was terrible and beautiful and involved a lot of poorly researched sword fights. I never really stopped.

I went on to build a career in television and film writing, which taught me how to structure a story that grabs you by the throat in the first five minutes and doesn't let go. I've spent years in writers' rooms, learning the craft of dialogue, pacing, and the fine art of making an audience feel something they didn't give you permission to feel. That training lives in every chapter I write — the cinematic pacing, the sharp dialogue, the scenes that play like a movie in your head.

But fiction was always the first love. And when I finally sat down to write The Omega Prophecy, everything clicked.

The Omega Saga is the series I needed when I was sixteen — dark, queer urban fantasy with heroines who are powerful and broken and trying so hard. It's Greek myth tangled up with modern danger. It's found family forged under impossible pressure. It's sapphic love stories that aren't quiet or polite. When the book debuted at #1 in Amazon's Lesbian Fiction for Young Adults, I ugly-cried for approximately forty-five minutes and then immediately panicked about Book 2. That felt about right.

My writing life exists in the overlap between fanfiction and "legitimate" publishing, and I wouldn't have it any other way. I cut my teeth writing fic on AO3 and Wattpad — those communities taught me more about voice, pacing, and connecting with readers than any screenwriting class ever did. If you found me through fic, welcome. If you found me through a bookstore, also welcome. You're all my people.

When I'm not writing, I'm finishing three to four jigsaw puzzles a week (I own over 500 and counting), making overly specific playlists for fictional characters, arguing about mythology with strangers on the internet, and being emotionally manipulated by my dog, Clifford, who has never done a single thing wrong in his life. I fuel the whole operation on black coffee, Tony's Chocolonely bars, and Jeni's Ice Cream.

The Omega Prophecy is my debut novel, the first in a series that blends ancient myths, queer romance, and high-stakes supernatural suspense. Book 2 is out now. The prophecy isn't finished. Neither am I.