What becomes of a story once it has been written? At Mountain Jay Books, we believe literature is meant not merely to be written, but to be carried forward to its readers and to endure beyond its author. Our mission is elevating literature through the discovery and online publication of emerging voices, the print publication of outstanding narrative talent, and the careful crafting of traditional hand-bound books that preserve not only the stories contained within them, but the ancient art of the book itself. In an age when words increasingly exist as fleeting arrangements of light on a screen, we seek to give literature both a place to be heard and a form in which it can endure.
The Mountain Jay
The Steller’s Jay is a bird of the high country—clever, watchful, adaptable, and unmistakable against the forests and granite slopes of the Colorado Rockies we call home. Affectionately known throughout this region as the Mountain Jay, it is as much a creature of place as the literature we seek to cultivate is a reflection of the places, people, and experiences from which it emerges. The bird’s namesake qualities make it an apt emblem for our work: it moves between worlds, carries what it finds, and thrives at the boundary between wilderness and civilization. So, too, does literature carry the human voice across boundaries of time and place. The Mountain Jay reminds us that a story need not remain where it was first found: given wings, it can soar.
About Us
Mountain Jay Books was founded in February 2026 in the Upper Arkansas River Valley of Central Colorado by a U.S. Navy veteran, writer, and bookbinder trained at the American Academy of Bookbinding. What began as a conviction that literature deserves both a voice and a physical form has grown into a small publishing and bookbinding company devoted to the preservation and elevation of the written word. Our work currently begins with a weekly online journal of short stories, providing emerging writers with a place to publish ambitious narrative work and grow their writing resumes. In the years ahead, Mountain Jay Books will expand into the print publication of a semi-annual journal of short stories and essays before offering hand-bookbinding services rooted in traditional techniques. In each of these endeavors, our purpose remains the same: to discover good stories, give them room to endure, and keep alive the craft through which generations of readers have carried literature forward.
