Writer Jay A. Fernandez grew up outside of Philadelphia and studied politics and journalism at Wake Forest University and American University. After getting his start writing book reviews at The Washington Post, he moved to New York and worked in the editorial departments of Barnesandnoble.com and Premiere. In 2000, he moved to Los Angeles to take a job as managing editor of Code, a minority men’s culture magazine.

As a freelance journalist, Fernandez has written cover stories, news items, profiles, set pieces, business stories, Q&As, crossword puzzles, and humor columns about music, TV, books, and film for Premiere, The Washington Post, Time Out New York, Entertainment Weekly, Savoy, Variety, USA Today, Los Angeles, LIFE, USA Weekend, ELLE, National Geographic KIDS, In Style, Seventeen, and Code. He currently writes the Scriptland column for The Los Angeles Times.