SATA

PERSONAL

Born December 17, 1995, in Indianapolis, IN.

EDUCATION:

Vincennes University, A.S. (liberal arts); Ball State University, bachelor’s degree in English.

ADDRESS

• Home - Muncie, IN.
• Agent - Lauren E. Abramo, Dystel, Goderich & Bourret, 1 Union Sq. W, Ste. 904, New York, NY 10003; labramo@dystel.com.

CAREER

Writer, musician, composer, conductor, and educator. Teaches middle-school English. Plays bassoon and euphonium professionally; composer of concert band music, including “Ancient Conquest” and “Insurrection,” both published by C.L. Barnhouse Company; “Galactic Episode,” Carl Fischer; and “Dystopia,” C. Alan Publications.

MEMBER:

American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers.

WRITINGS

• YOUNG-ADULT NOVELS
• The Growing Feathers, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014
• (As J. Coles) Come As You Were, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2015
• (As J. Coles) Under The Lights, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2015
• Lionheart, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2015
• Tyler Johnson Was Here, Little, Brown and Company (Boston, MA), 2018
• Things We Couldn’t Say, Scholastic (New York, NY), 2021
• Outer Banks: Dead Break, Amulet Books (New York, NY), 2023

SIDELIGHTS

Jay Coles is a writer and educator. A graduate of Vincennes University and Ball State University, Coles self-released his first book, The Growing Feathers, in 2014. His other self-published works are Come As You Were, Under The Lights, and Lionheart, all released in 2015. In an interview on the Brown Bookshelf, Coles commented, “I’d been querying and sending out manuscripts to agents since I was in high school. I was pretty ambitious. … One day, I thought, ‘hey, what if I wrote a story inspired by events in my life?’ I tried and tried but wasn’t really getting anywhere with that story. After Trayvon Martin lost his life, something inside me clicked. I was filled with rage and tears and anger and also lots and lots of words. It reminded me of what I saw happening in neighborhoods like mine growing up.” Tyler Johnson Was Here and Things We Couldn’t Say were Coles’s first professionally published works, both of which received rave critical reception.

 

Coles’s first traditionally published novel, Tyler Johnson Was Here, features Marvin Johnson and his identical twin brother, Tyler, who have always been close. The sons of an absentee father and a single mother, Marvin and Tyler are used to fending for themselves. The twins have always been good students, but senior year is different for Tyler when he drifts away from his academics and towards friends and staying out late. Furthermore, Tyler’s involvement with a local gang causes a rift in the once-close relationship. One night while out at a party, Tyler is senselessly targeted by a police officer and killed in an unprovoked altercation. A video of the killing ends up on social media and sparks a chain of events that Marvin must navigate if he is to vindicate his deceased brother. The murder inspires tensions between members of the Black Lives Matter movement and the All Lives Matter crowd.

“This well-written, fast-paced story eloquently addresses how to grieve, plan, and participate in the burial of a loved one, a sensitive subject for all youth. It also succeeds in not avoiding tough subjects, such as systemic racism,” wrote Sabrina Carnesi in School Library Journal. In Voice of Youth Advocates, Matt Pavloff called Tyler Johnson Was Here “a powerful story full of heart and it packs a deep emotional punch” and concluded that “there cannot be enough young adult novels giving black families a voice in our country.” Discussing his inspiration for the novel with Alice Cary on the BookPage website, Coles explained, “My cousin lost his life to police violence when I was really young, maybe 8 or 9. At the time, I had no idea what ‘police brutality’ meant, yet there was still so much anger and pain experienced by me and my family. When I was in high school, I remember seeing a lot of innocent black and brown boys and girls lose their lives to police violence on the news and social media. It felt like this tunnel of darkness that I couldn’t escape.”

In 2021, Coles published Things We Couldn’t Say. Discussing the novel in an interview with Jessica Schram on the Shereads website, Coles stated, “I had always wanted to write about a Black boy who finds love in various forms. Specifically, I wanted to explore the intersection of Blackness and queerness because I didn’t see many books that talked about this, but especially not from an affirming place. It felt very natural to write.” Giovanni Zander—Gio for short—is the son of a preacher who consistently critiques him. Matters between father and son are further stressed after Gio comes out as bisexual. His grades are slipping and his birth mother, who he has not seen or heard from in years, has reached out requesting to see her son, bringing out a lot of mixed emotions in the young man. In spite of his alcoholic preacher father, Gio finds support among his stepmother and friends. Matters come to a head when Gio meets David while playing for the basketball team. The two’s budding relationship is complicated by Gio’s personal matters, which must be sorted if Gio is to be at peace with himself.

A contributor to Kirkus Reviews called Things We Couldn’t Say “a realistic depiction of challenging circumstances and first love.” Julia Smith, writing in Booklist, concluded, “All in all, Gio’s personal journey offers a welcome intersection of identities and experiences that is sweetened by the love shown him and the love that he learns to give.” In an interview on the Bliss Life website, Coles explained, “Gio story came to me quite easily during the period of time I was stuck in my house in quarantine this past year. I knew that once Gio first popped into my thoughts, that his story was one about love, parental abandonment, forgiveness, second chances, and all the ways that family can hurt each other. Gio’s story is one that I can really empathize with because a lot of Gio is actually, well, me.”

(open new) Coles is the author of the 2023 book, Outer Banks: Dead Break, which is associated with the Netflix series of the same name, which debuted in 2020. It follows two rival groups of teens—the Pogues and the Kooks—who live on the Outer Banks, a tourist region on the coast of North Carolina. The Kooks are kids from wealthy families, who come to the Outer Banks on vacation, while the Pogues are the children of the working-class residents of the Outer Banks, who live there all year long. Kie straddles both worlds, as her father is a successful restaurant owner, but she is not just a summer resident. In Coles’s book, Kie and the Pogues are involved with putting on a surfing competition that is drawing competitors from other locations. Her parents disapprove of her activities, pressuring her to hang out with the Kooks instead. When an out-of-towner is murdered, Kie and her Pogue friends, Pope, JJ, and John B, work together to determine who is responsible. Meanwhile, the kids consider their future and the careers they would like to have. The book alternates between focusing on Kie and on Pope. A Kirkus Reviews writer offered a mostly favorable assessment of Outer Banks, suggesting: “It’s a treat for loyal followers, who will enjoy riding the wave to its satisfying conclusion.”(close new)

BIOCRIT

PERIODICALS

• Booklist, January 1, 2018, Enishia Davenport, review of Tyler Johnson Was Here, p. 94; September 15, 2021, Julia Smith, review of Things We Couldn’t Say, p. 66.

• BookPage, April, 2018, Alice Cary, review of Tyler Johnson Was Here, p. 28.

• Kirkus Reviews, February 1, 2018, review of Tyler Johnson Was Here; August 1, 2021, review of Things We Couldn’t Say; October 15, 2023, review of Outer Banks: Dead Break.

• School Library Journal, February, 2018, Sabrina Carnesi, review of Tyler Johnson Was Here, p. 100.

• Voice of Youth Advocates, February, 2018, Matt Pavloff, review of Tyler Johnson Was Here, p. 53.

ONLINE

• Bliss Life, https://shereads.com/ (July 15, 2021), author interview.

• BookPage, https://bookpage.com/ (April 9, 2018), Alice Cary, author interview.

• Book Q&As with Deborah Kalb, http://deborahkalbbooks.blogspot.com/ (September 17, 2021), Deborah Kalb, author interview.

• Brown Bookshelf, https://thebrownbookshelf.com/ (February 19, 2018), Jerry Craft, author interview.

• C.L. Barnhouse Company website, https://www.barnhouse.com/ (November 1, 2018), profile of Coles.

• Entertainment Weekly Online, https://ew.com/ (September 20, 2021), Seija Rankin, author interview.

• Geeks Out, https://www.geeksout.org/ (July 30, 2021), Michele Kirichanskaya, author interview.

• Jay Coles website, https://www.jaycoleswriter.com (March 28, 2024).

• Nerd Daily, https://thenerddaily.com/ (September 16, 2021), Mimi Koehler, author interview.

• Shereads, https://shereads.com/ (June 1, 2021), Jessica Schram, author interview.*