About Jay's Writing
Ayana Mathis on 'Milk Bottle Churches'
" Heartbreaking. Lyrically and beautifully written. This writer shows a deep facility with storytelling and knows when to reveal and when to withhold. The characters were well-rendered. The story’s use of figurative language was gorgeous, and more importantly, this writer understands that such language can be used to evoke the mood of the story as a whole, not merely the sentence or clause in which it appears: “On the sepia-tinted west bank of the Ex . . .” or “. . . a dress that looks like a week-old bruise . . .” Time is also handled incredibly well; though the story’s current action takes place years after that fateful summer, those events haunt this story. The writer cleverly shows us how much the present is beholden to the past. I can’t think of a better macro-metaphor than the titular milk bottles thrown into the sea so long ago: one still carrying its message, the other smashed on a shore thousands of miles away."
Sean Lusk on 'This is London baby'
" This is London, Baby is wholly its own thing. The writing fizzes and flames with originality, honesty and a kind of self-outrage. Here we follow the messy life of a woman from hedonistic clubbing in the nineties when she is eighteen to a sober assessment of all its highs and lows when she is in her mid-forties. It leaves us pondering all that she has not told us and, like the very best short stories, the feeling that we have been given a glimpse of a character’s true soul. The language is startling, fierce and singular. Truly outstanding. "
Lucy Luck and Liv Bignold on 'Danger Zone'
"Danger Zone is a keenly poignant study of ageing, loneliness and grief, told through a wash of nostalgia. We were struck by the precision of the prose here; the author exerts perfect control over the narrative, circling the source of the narrator’s disillusionment in a way that reflects the vacuous nature of loss. The way that the past bleeds into the present day narration is skillfully executed and the descriptions of urban decay feel rich in political and allegorical meaning. This is a dignified, hugely sympathetic portrait of a middle-aged woman grieving for the optimism of youth."
Neale Anderson on 'Bucket'
"“An evocative and moving description of adventure later in life, the example it can set, and what it can mean to loved ones. Deftly told with reference to multiple cultures and experiences.."
