About The Author

Jay Sizemore is an American poet and author of over 20 books of poetry and prose. He has been nominated for and a finalist for multiple awards and contests. He was born and raised in Clarkson, Kentucky, a town with one caution light and one convenience store. Ever since he read The Shining at age 12, he has wanted to write novels like his favorite author. His first novel, APNEA, was released in early 2023. There is so much more to come.

Currently he lives and works in Portland, Oregon, where he lies awake and listens to it rain.

Things haven’t all been wine and roses in chasing this dream of writing.

Some more about me:

In Kentucky, the trees are tall as gods. My grandparents took me to a small, one-room church, where people loved to slap the Bible, shout Amen, and cry, pushing their children into the center of the room so they could learn to pray until they mistook dizziness for salvation.

These experiences shaped a lot of my childhood and mental development. We moved around a lot growing up, and I learned to never get comfortable knowing people. I love simple things, like food, beer, and the company of longterm companions, taking road trips, discovering new things about myself.

When I was twelve years old, my mother introduced me to Stephen King, and well, I haven’t been the same since. From a young age, I devoured horror novels and watched every movie I could get my hands on, even working at a video store for two years, which allowed me to ingest films like others breathe air. For a long time, I thought I was a visual artist, which proved counterproductive to my early college education, where I changed majors three times, ended up in creative writing, and ultimately dropped out with more student loan debt than any rational person would want.

I am happily married to one of the most beautiful women alive, and we have two cats named after Lord of the Rings characters and a dog we call The Dingo.

My first chapbook, Father Figures: autobiographical poems, was released in 2014 to good reviews, and is available at Amazon. Since that time I have published 15 other collections including a collection of short stories through my independent press Crow Hollow Books.