Lecturer
Year Started at JMU: 2012
varnerjs@jmu.edu
Contact Info
Education
M.F.A., Creative Nonfiction, University of North Carolina Wilmington, 2007
B.A., Creative Writing, Susquehanna University, 2003
Professional Focuses
Jay’s primary focus is writing about climate change and our rapidly changing natural world.
Publications
Books
Memoir, Nothing Left to Burn, published September 21, 2010 by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill.
Anthologies
"Brian Panowich," essay, Twenty-First- Century Southern Writers, New Voices, New Perspectives, edited by Jean Cash and Richard Gaughran, 2021, University Press of Mississippi.
"5/03/03," essay, One for the Road: An Anthology of Road Trip Writing, edited by Proal Heartwell, independently published June 16, 2020.
Print Literary Journals
Bomb, interview "Lee Clay Johnson by Jay Varner," Issue 136.
Fjords, essay "How to Be A Man in Central Pennsylvania," Fjords, Fall/Winter 2015/2016.
Lake Effect, essay "What Did Scott Franco Ever Do to You?" Volume 18/Spring 2014.
Essay Magazine, essay "The High Water Mark," Volume 14/Spring 2014.
Cedars, essay "Nothing Wrong with the Radio" Issue 4, Summer 2013.
Georgetown Review, essay "The Pennsylvania Bolide," Spring 2012.
Oxford American Magazine, "Play, Guitar Play," December 2011.
The Southeast Review, essay "Sport for Our Neighbors," Spring 2010.
Quicksilver, essay "Farm Machines," Fall 2008.
Black Warrior Review, essay "Missing Persons," Spring 2008.
The Rectangle, essay "Small Gestures," 2003.
Online Literary Journals
Bomb, "Looking Back on 2017: Music," December 14, 2017.
McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, "An Open Letter to My Neighbor Who Frequently Sits Alone inside His Truck," June 2006.
