Meet April Guscott

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to April Guscott. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

April , first a big thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and insights with us today. I’m sure many of our readers will benefit from your wisdom, and one of the areas where we think your insight might be most helpful is related to imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is holding so many people back from reaching their true and highest potential and so we’d love to hear about your journey and how you overcame imposter syndrome.

I overcame imposter syndrome by weighing my fears of failing against my fears of never bringing my dreams to life. In the end, my dreams won out. I have always been a writer (terrible love poems and some short stories) but I never really shared that work publicly. Writing has been my greatest outlet, and it’s always been so personal and that’s also why I loved it. It belonged to me and I didn’t have to consider what others thought about it. In grad school I was able to take screenwriting classes and graduated wanting to write for TV and the big screen which are inherently not selfish mediums. By their very nature they require sharing with audiences. So, I danced around my potential for many years. I held myself back by not finishing projects or investing the time to really develop my craft because I was afraid of sharing my failures and my not good enoughs with anyone. By the time I knew what I really wanted to say in my writing and had developed an understanding of my voice, putting my dreams to the wayside of getting my work produced or on platforms to share with larger audiences, just because they might not be received too well, became harder to do. That was about six years ago and it’s been a slow but somewhat steady climb towards my biggest achievement, producing my first short film, At The Threshold in 2023.

At The Threshold is about a widowed father and son who need to not only navigate their new family dynamic after the loss of their matriarch (mother and wife), but also have to navigate an impending storm brought on by climate change, threatening to destroy their tiny community and yet another space they’ve made a home. The year before I made this short, I was pretty inconsistent in going after my dreams. Being complacent was a familiar place for me to be, and so was being upset with myself about it. Not knowing what the kind of success that I wanted felt like, finally got to me. And I wanted to feel something different. I’m still riding the high of this achievement but I really couldn’t have done it without my peers, family and friends who have supported my dreams and believed in me even when I didn’t believe in myself.

So naturally too, something that helped me fight imposter syndrome was being connected to a wonderful community of fellow writers and creatives who showed me what successes were possible with actual hard work, consistency and passion. This, coupled with my dreams, which are pretty persistent, and never leave me alone for too long is how I’ve come to embody the practice of “doing it afraid”. Doing it afraid means pursuing your goals imperfectly. I don’t have to have everything I think I need to do the things that I’m passionate about and that is my guiding light for any and everything that I set my mind to.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

I’m Jamaican-American, born, raised and currently residing in Brooklyn NY as a writer and filmmaker. I’ve always been a shy person and growing up writing was a great way for me to express the little worlds that I built in my head. I’m still shy but in some ways being a writer and a filmmaker is bringing me out of my shell to build up community and seek out other creatives for collaboration. I’ve also been a big fan of movies and TV  all my life and though I’ve dreamed of making movies, I never thought about what it would be like to actually pursue it as full-time work.

Day to day, I work for the NYC Department of Education, supporting initiatives that help high schools students get paid to work in different industries of their choosing, but it provides me a lot of flexibility to be a filmmaker since my position is primarily remote. What I didn’t expect about filmmaking once I started producing my own projects was how addictive it would become. Whether its my own film or someone else’s, what’s the most exciting is being on set, and so I find that once my peers and I finish one project, soon after we try to get on another one just to get back to set. I can feel the magic in the air when I join a group of folks for a shared effort to make something creative, all bringing our best attitudes and talents, and it feels really special. It’s very tiring work of course but it also feeds you. 

Primarily my work is science fiction (I’m taking a stab at horror) and focused on social issues affecting marginalized folks. But I also work in documentary and my newest funded project by the New York State Council On The Arts, Shadow Work, is meant to document the labor contributions of immigrant women of color to American industries. The goal is to have a final edit completed this year to share it with audiences. I think so much of what we’re experiencing in the world right now is based on our histories, and I think it’s part of my duty as a storyteller to remind folks about the people who helped shape this country and what they continue to give to it. I’ll be happy for the rest of my life, if I can continue to uplift these kinds of people and stories in my projects for the world to see.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

The three qualities or skills that were most impactful in my journey were adaptability, tenacity and a wild imagination. Things aren’t always going to go the way you plan, but you need to be able to pivot if you want to succeed. And because this work is highly collaborative, you need to know that you can only control yourself. And this applies to anything in life. Don’t waste time on things you can’t control, but do make sure to adjust your goals, your efforts, your vision accordingly. This also will help your journey because you’ll develop staying power, and the ability to survive. The ability to survive is absolutely tied to your ability to succeed. And my imagination plays a part in all of this, because you have to be able to envision solutions, problems, the best outcomes and the worst ones in order to thrive. Imagination too helps you figure out what you want so you don’t waste time on the things that aren’t meant for you.

Any advice for folks feeling overwhelmed?

When I’m feeling overwhelmed by all of the people I have to follow up with, or the research that I have to do, the equipment that I have to reserve, just in general wearing too many hats, I leave my home and go do something fun and freeing. Even if there’s a ticking clock, I’ll go outside and take a long walk, I’ll get something to eat, meet with friends or see a museum exhibit by myself. Usually it’s something creative or a couple of the things just mentioned, but I do a lot of my work and planning in my home, and when I’m feeling overwhelmed, it’s not a place to rest until it’s time for bed. And though a nap is nice sometimes, I can’t spend all day sleeping. So getting up to move my body, change my environment and engage with something unrelated to what’s stressing me out has been very helpful to me getting over being overwhelmed.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @iriesoulfood

Image Credits

Izaiah Adams (boy at sink)
Emmanuel Achigbu (man with radio) on bench
April Guscott (woman with headphones)