Erin L. McCoy
Writer + Editor + Educator
Erin L. McCoy. Photo by Brooke Herbert.
Erin L. McCoy is the author of Wrecks, forthcoming from Noemi Press in October 2025 and a finalist for the Noemi Book Awards.
Erin’s work has appeared in Best New Poets twice, selected by Kaveh Akbar in 2021 and Natalie Diaz in 2017. She was a finalist in the Missouri Review’s Miller Audio Prize and won second place in the 2019–2020 Rougarou Poetry Contest, judged by CAConrad. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in American Poetry Review, Conjunctions, and other publications.
Born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, Erin has lived in Malaysia, Spain, Russia, and Seattle. Her writing is deeply rooted in place—and haunted by Louisville, most of all.
When she was a kid, Erin’s father worked at a zoo, and the time she spent one-on-one with the cockatoos and orangutans before the zoo opened each morning drove her poetic engagement with themes of environmental justice. In addition to her forthcoming collection, Wrecks, Erin is working on two poetry manuscripts and a novel.
Publications.
Erin’s poetry and fiction have appeared or are forthcoming in Narrative, Bennington Review, Pleiades, Conjunctions, Beloit Poetry Journal, Nimrod International Journal, and other publications.
News & Updates.
Education & Awards.
Erin holds an MFA in poetry and an MA in Hispanic studies from the University of Washington. She specializes in twentieth-century Spanish, Latin American, and US literature.
She has received a Fulbright Fellowship; a Critical Languages Scholarship; an Inprint C. Glenn Cambor Fellowship; and the Oakley Hall III Memorial Scholarship to attend the Community of Writers, among other awards.