The Story
From telling stories to publishing them
Jasmaine Payne began writing the way many writers do, privately, persistently, and long before anyone asked to read it. Growing up in Guyana, she filled notebooks with characters who behaved badly for interesting reasons, and she kept writing them through school, through university, and through fifteen years of newsroom deadlines.
Journalism gave her the discipline; fiction gave her the freedom. In 2025 those two lives met in LEECH, her debut psychological thriller, a novel she drafted around assignments, edits and early mornings until it became the book she had been circling for years.
The Writer
Psychological thrillers, and the people inside them
Her work sits in the space between psychological thriller and horror-thriller, drawn to identity, obsession, appetite and the quiet arithmetic of human behaviour. She is interested in what people talk themselves into, and in the moment ambition stops being a virtue.
She writes as a Caribbean voice in a genre that rarely sounds Caribbean, bringing Guyanese texture, cadence and history into stories that travel from Georgetown to London to New York. Craft matters to her as much as plot: sentences that hold their weight, structure that earns its ending.
Her short story “Another One for Mother Moon” was shortlisted for the Guyana Annual Competition, and her writing has appeared in Guyana at 50, 50 Women 50 Years, GEM Magazine and Lady Magazine.
The Professional
Fifteen years of journalism, eight of editing
Alongside her fiction, Jasmaine works as an editor and communications specialist. She has spent approximately fifteen years in journalism and more than eight years in professional editing, working with authors, businesses, development agencies and public institutions.
She delivers workshops and training in writing, editing and communications, and mentors emerging writers through developmental editing, coaching and publishing support, helping them turn drafts into books and ideas into publishable work.
The Education
Literature, then marketing
BA in English — University of London, Goldsmiths.
MBA in Marketing — University of Bedfordshire.
The pairing is deliberate: one taught her how stories work, the other taught her how they reach readers.
Recognition
- The Guyana Prize for Literature – Best First Fiction
- 2025 Influential Women Leaders Award — recipient
- 2nd Place — 2026 BookFest Awards (LEECH)
- Finalist, Fiction Debut — 2025 Literary Global Book Awards (LEECH)
- Finalist, Writing Award & Phoenix Award — 2025 Page Turner Awards (LEECH)
- Shortlisted — Guyana Annual Competition (“Another One for Mother Moon”)
Work with Jasmaine
For interviews, speaking engagements, collaborations or literary events, Jasmaine welcomes enquiries from media, organisers and fellow writers.