About April
As Featured On: A Sober Girls Guide Podcast
Writer. Survivor. Joy Seeker.
I'm April Day Garcia, and I never set out to write a memoir. I set out to survive.
For over a decade, I have worked as a Certified Occupational Therapy Assistant in skilled nursing and rehabilitation facilities on Long Island, helping people rebuild their lives after illness, injury, and loss. I've spent my career teaching others how to heal. But my own healing? That took longer.
I grew up in Southern California carrying secrets I thought would crush me if I ever spoke them aloud. Childhood trauma. A mother who loved me but couldn't protect me from her own pain. A father who left before I could see his face. I learned early how to lock doors and keep rooms sealed tight.
I moved to Iowa at nineteen, thinking distance would save me. Then to New York in my twenties, where I met my husband Rick and we built a life together. We have a daughter, Bella, who is fifteen and everything good I didn't know I was capable of creating.
But you can't outrun your past. Eventually, it catches up.
In 2021, I hit bottom. Depression, anxiety, and the truth I'd been hiding even from myself: I was an alcoholic. It was three more years before I entered recovery, and that's when the real work began—not just getting sober, but facing every room I'd locked away. The ones that held shame, fear, and memories I'd rather forget.
The Room to Be Brave is the story of walking back through those rooms. It's about the courage it takes to face your past so you don't pass it on to your children. It's about breaking generational cycles, acknowledging your own mistakes, and discovering that joy isn't something that happens to you—it's something you choose, over and over again.
Beyond the Book
When I'm not writing or working in occupational therapy, I run Be Brave Travel, an accessible travel agency that helps people with disabilities and chronic illnesses experience the world without barriers. Travel taught me that adventure is still possible, even when your body has other plans.
I'm also the president of The JD BUILDS Foundation, a nonprofit established in memory of my brother-in-law Jay. We're building something beautiful from grief, and that's taught me more about healing than I ever expected.
I'm a Reiki practitioner, a chronic illness warrior (kidney disease and a few other fun surprises), and someone who believes that humor—especially dark humor—is a survival skill.
I live on Long Island with Rick, Bella, and I have collected an incredible group of people that have helped me feel brave enough to write this story.
Let's Connect
My "Find Your Joy Project"
I believe that joy isn't something you wait for—it's something you create, actively and intentionally, even when life is hard.
Especially when life is hard.
The Find Your Joy Project is my personal philosophy: that we all deserve to build big lives filled with big love, big hope, and big joy. That healing isn't about perfection or completion—it's about the courage to keep building, room by room, moment by moment.
This book is part of that project. A room I built for bravery. A space where others might find permission to open their own doors.
I'd love to hear from you. Whether you're on your own healing journey, you've got a story to share, or you just want to say hello—reach out.