Jay Gao

Jay Gao is a poet and writer from Edinburgh, based in New York City.

Early life and education Jay Gao was born in Preston in 1994 but was raised in Glasgow and Edinburgh. After attending the University of Edinburgh, he later earned his MFA in Literary Arts (Poetry) from Brown University. He is currently a PhD student in English Literature at Columbia University.

Career Between 2017 and 2022, Gao began publishing under the name Jay G Ying, publishing two poetry pamphlets during this time: Wedding Beasts (2019), shortlisted for the 2019 Callum MacDonald Memorial Award; and Katabasis (2020), winner of the 2019 New Poets Prize, judged by Mary Jean Chan.

In 2018, Gao co-founded the Scottish BPOC Writers Network with Alycia Pirmohamed as an "advocacy and professional development group for Scottish and Scotland-based writers and literary professionals who identify as BPOC (Black people, People of Colour)".

In 2019, Gao participated in the Palestine Festival of Literature as a visiting author, alongside writers including Victoria Adukwei Bulley and Natalie Diaz.

In 2020, Gao was part of a delegation for the 35th British Council Literature Seminar in Hamburg, in collaboration with Literaturhaus Hamburg, in order to promote new Scottish literature and voices alongside Louise Welsh, Mary Paulson-Ellis, Malachy Tallack, and Kirsty Logan.

In 2022, his debut poetry collection, Imperium, was published by Carcanet and was subsequently a winner of the 2023 Michael Murphy Memorial Poetry Prize, a Somerset Maugham Award, and an Eric Gregory Award. Imperium was also a runner-up for the 2022 Edwin Morgan Poetry Award and long-listed for the Anglo-Hellenic League Runciman Award. He also published a poetry pamphlet TRAVESTY58 in 2022.

In 2022, his short story "The Baron and His Volcano" won the 2022 Desperate Literature Short Fiction Prize, a prize that aims to celebrate international writers of experimental fiction.

His writing has received support from literary institutions and residencies such as Moniack Mhor, Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, Tin House, Civitella Ranieri Foundation, he currently reads for Poetry.

Works

Poetry Collections

2026: The Dead One, The Unconscious One, Thundering in Your Ear, Thriving Slumber (Nightboat Books, Carcanet Press) 2022: Imperium (Carcanet Press)

Poetry Pamphlets/Chapbooks

2024: Bark, Archive, Splinter (Out-Spoken Press) 2024: Bark, Archive, Splinter (Belladonna*) 2022: TRAVESTY58: Lake Poems (SPAM Press) 2020: Katabasis (Smith|Doorstop) 2019: Wedding Beasts (Bitter Melon)

Awards

2023: Michael Murphy Memorial Poetry Prize (Imperium) 2019: New Poets Prize (Katabasis)