Jay McCoy

Jay McCoy is a Lexington-based writer and visual artist with deep roots in Eastern Kentucky. He currently serves as director of the Kentucky Center for the Book with Kentucky Humanities. Jay earned his MFA in creative writing from the Bluegrass Writers Studio at Eastern Kentucky University. Active in the writing community, he co-hosts the Kentucky Writers Roundtable radio show on MediaLex Radio, leads Q-munity (a queer writing series) at the Carnegie Center, and co-founded three local reading series. Jay’s writing has appeared in several anthologies and journals. His chapbook, The Occupation, was published in 2016 by Accents Publishing, and he edited the 2020 Lexington Poetry Month Anthology, Maps We Forgot to Bring. His first full-length collection, Wings Crafted from Propeller Blades, came out in 2026 from Broadstone Books.