Purple Inkwell Studios / The Development Archive
Stories with Long Shadows.
Stories are where I put the things that refuse to stay buried.
I write them. I draw them. I build their worlds, their faces, and the visual language that makes them recognizable. These original literary and illustrated projects explore mythology, psychology, memory, power, and the stranger machinery of being human.
The Development Archive represents approximately twenty years of original storytelling, illustration, character creation, and worldbuilding. These stories have taken shape across different periods of my life and continue to grow toward publication and new creative possibilities.
Selected Original Stories & Worlds
The Worlds
I've Built.
Some began with a sentence that wouldn't leave me alone. Others began as drawings before I understood who the characters were. Each project has developed its own history, atmosphere, and visual identity. Here are the worlds I'm bringing toward their finished forms.
Original Properties / In Development
Selected original visual development
Featured World 01 / Psychological Horror
The Day the Carnival Came
What if applause were a form of theft?
When a traveling carnival arrives, eleven-year-old Emily is drawn into a spectacle that feeds on attention. Behind ringmaster Francesco's charm lies a brutal economy of performance and consumption.
An illustrated psychological horror narrative about exploitation, performance, childhood vulnerability, and what happens when an audience wants more than an artist can give.
Umbrella Girls / Original illustrated world
Featured World 02 / Illustrated Gothic Fantasy
Umbrella Girls
In Morrowick, umbrellas keep more than rain out.
At nine, the girls of Morrowick receive their umbrellas. Six young lives take shape beneath six private storms, in a village where old traditions, buried secrets, and strange happenings are woven into everyday life.
An illustrated gothic fantasy world exploring childhood emotion, identity, and the symbolic language of the imagination.
Selected Projects / The Working Archive
Other Doors in the Archive.
Different stories, different audiences, and different ways of approaching the same enduring questions. Each of these projects has its own written or visual history and continues to develop.
World 03 / Middle-Grade Fantasy Adventure
Ladybird Jenkins
At the Indovian Academy, curiosity has a way of turning into trouble. A young heroine moves through a world of peculiar institutions, mysteries, and questions about identity, time, and existence.
Conceived as a longer literary series, Ladybird Jenkins brings together prose, illustration, artifacts, and an imaginative world designed to reward exploration.
Inquire About Ladybird Jenkins ↗
World 04 / Adult Cyberpunk Dystopia
GOD.exe
In the post-cataclysm City of the Fallen, the theocratic Novus Dei governs through doctrine, surveillance, and neural technology. Lola Vanthorn, known to the resistance as P!x@lP^nk, searches for the truth behind her family's disappearance.
A speculative world concerned with manufactured belief, freedom, technology, and the dangerous power to alter perception.
Inquire About GOD.exe ↗
World 05 / Visual Myth & Allegory
Custodia Umbrarum
Guardians, hidden burdens, and watchful figures gather at the edge of light. A visually driven exploration of the shadows people live with, and the stories we invent to make them bearable.
Working through illustration, symbolism, and psychological narrative, this project considers the things we carry without knowing what they weigh.
Inquire About Custodia Umbrarum ↗
World 06 / Illustrated Philosophical Exploration
The Mythic Self
An illustrated exploration of creativity, consciousness, and the archetypal figures through which people understand themselves.
Part visual inquiry and part philosophical experiment, the project examines the myths we inherit and the stories through which we become ourselves.
Inquire About The Mythic Self ↗The Development Archive / Twenty Years of Making
A Body of Work Still Becoming.
These worlds did not arrive fully formed. Some began as a sentence in a notebook. Others began with a face, a photograph, a drawing, or an idea too stubborn to leave alone.
Over roughly twenty years, I've returned to them, taken them apart, and built them again. Their characters, histories, conflicts, and underlying ideas have been shaped through years of writing and illustration.
The archive brings together the literary and visual foundations of these worlds. I am now working toward finished manuscripts, illustrated editions, and creative opportunities that will allow these stories to reach audiences beyond the studio.
April Martin
Literary Representation / Publishing / Creative Partnerships
One Creator. Stories Built in Words and Images.
My work begins with narrative and visual development happening alongside one another. I am interested in professional relationships that recognize the possibilities of original storytelling and the importance of finding the right form for each project.
Story First
Original literary worlds spanning psychological horror, middle-grade fantasy, and speculative fiction, developed with attention to character, atmosphere, and narrative depth.
Words and Artwork
My practice brings together manuscripts, illustration, original character design, and visual storytelling. Each discipline informs the other, creating a recognizable identity for the worlds I develop.
Beyond the Page
Certain stories invite possibilities beyond their original form. Graphic narratives, animation, screen storytelling, and interactive experiences offer different ways to explore their characters and worlds. I welcome conversations with creative partners who see the potential for those possibilities to develop.
The Creator / Purple Inkwell Studios
April Martin
Writer · Illustrator · Photographer · Founder
April Martin is a Kentucky-based writer and multidisciplinary artist and the founder of Purple Inkwell Studios. Her work spans illustrated psychological horror, middle-grade fantasy, speculative fiction, photography, and visual storytelling.
She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography from the Academy of Art University, is a United States Air Force veteran, and has years of experience in arts education.
Through writing and illustration, she explores memory, mythology, identity, psychological tension, and the complexities of the human condition.
Founder, Purple Inkwell Studios
Kentucky, United States