Bizzy Coy Is A Better Writer Than I Am
By Matt Levy
Any copywriter worth their salt will tell you that every job is a wholly unique experience. Every client is different. Some want simplicity, some prefer novels. A few want witty writing, most want you to be VERY funny. The major difference between the writer and client though is that the writer is typically hired because they’re a superior scribe to their new employer.
That’s not the case here.
I was hired to write about the gifted copywriter Bizzy Coy and it made me a bit anxious. Her writing is sharp, concise and her humor writing has been featured in such reputable publications as The New Yorker, McSweeney’s and The Belladonna.
However, after virtually interviewing Bizzy, I realized there was nothing to worry about. Bizzy’s story was so warm and engaging that it would speak for itself.
Let’s go there now.
Coy, a New York State gal, humbly began our talk by telling me that it took her a long time to get to where she is these days as a freelance writer. After graduating with a major in theater from SUNY Geneseo, Bizzy spent her days as an administrative assistant at Blue Man Group. She was in her field but not creatively satisfied. On Sunday nights, Coy tuned into AMC and lived vicariously through the fast-talking professionals on Mad Men and had the sudden realization she may need a change in scenery. Soon after, Bizzy became a copywriter at a digital agency that serviced Broadway clients, which felt like a much better fit.
Still, she wanted more. While copywriting, she realized she had an itch to scratch with her own creative writing. As much as she loved Don Draper and Peggy Olson, she had been most influenced by funnier, lighter fare from the ’90s TV of her youth. She and her older brother were latchkey kids and they would often find themselves home alone after school watching TV they weren’t allowed to when adults were around.
These were the fledgling days of Comedy Central, so the two of them would sneakily catch standup specials, reruns of Phil Hartman and Dana Carvey-era SNL, the original Canadian Whose Line Is It Anyway? and her favorite, Kids in the Hall.
These influences started making their way into Bizzy’s side passion projects and she began cranking out screenplays, TV pilots and plays. Unfortunately, none of these creative ventures were produced but they were fun for Coy to explore and hopefully will be realized in the coming decade.
Before looking forward though, we must look back to get a fuller view of Coy. Bizzy, the New York State gal was born and raised in the suburbs of Rochester, New York by her now retired middle school art teacher Mom who currently spends her days obsessively birding and her classic suburban, also-retired Dad (read: mowed the lawn in his grass-stained New Balance sneakers), who worked for Xerox most of his adult life as a software engineer.
While flipping through Bizzy’s high school yearbook, you’ll find the quote next to her senior portrait was the elegant, “I am Bizzy Coy.” At the time she thought she was being original, but didn’t realize she was subconsciously paying tribute to The Simpsons episode where Lisa has a crush on her substitute teacher and his parting advice is “You are Lisa Simpson.”
Soon after the publication of that yearbook, Coy attended college in the Finger Lakes region (theater major!) and then after graduation, moved to New York City where she hopped from apartments in Washington Heights to Williamsburg to Greenpoint and finally to Kensington, Brooklyn and kick started her career. Seven years ago, she moved to the Catskills region, about two hours outside NYC.
It makes sense that Bizzy would return to a more “country” and less “city” locale; nature makes her much happier than being surrounded by skyscrapers and large crowds. Coy longed for waking up in the morning to a cacophony of birds, and “taking her dog out for one final pee break late at night when it’s totally dark and quiet and she can look at the stars.”
Only Bizzy can make a pee break sound poetic.
Coy hears the birds early every morning from her small two-bedroom cottage on a lake. The previous owners painted the inside wild colors — green, orange, yellow — and she kept them all. There’s a cute red wood stove, built-in bookcases and original 1950s bathroom fixtures, mint green and butter yellow. Coy vividly describes the place “her cozy, little vintage paradise that’s the perfect place for her and her pup Henry.”
“However,” Bizzy laughingly added, “There are carpenter ants crawling across my ceiling as we speak.” Coy continued, “They’re big, fat ants and kind of slow but really destructive because they’re eating my house from the inside out! But they’re on the ceiling.” Coy jokingly added, “I’ll let them be since I’m too lazy to get a broom.”
It is from this nature-filled home where Bizzy organically grows words into moving copy. As a professional freelance copywriter during the day, she works primarily with Broadway shows and large nonprofit performing arts venues establishing a voice and creative strategy that invites people in with warmth and wit. Coy pointed out, “The arts are already so inaccessible to many, and copy plays a crucial role in connecting with people in a fun and friendly way.”
When she clocks out from copywriting, she focuses back on humor. Bizzy loves writing short, absurd pieces that she can’t possibly imagine would resonate with anyone but her. That’s what makes her writing so special; she’s reached the special place few writers ascend to where they write for pleasure as opposed to for show.
Her humorous work is inspired not only by the TV shows she watched after school with her brother but also decades-old infomercials. Some of Coy’s earliest parodies were fake infomercials she and her best friend wrote for the “radio station” they had set up when they were twelve, which was really just two friends speaking into a cassette recorder and laughing hysterically while listening back to the tape.
Still, it took Bizzy a long time to embrace her “funny,” as she found herself trying to create “serious” work that never seemed to click early in her career. In 2015, Coy wrote a novel that she couldn’t sell (Bizzy admits, “it was truly not great”), but she kept getting feedback from literary agents saying it was funny. Coy hadn’t intended for it to be humorous, but that stuck with her. She thought, “What if I abandon my quest for Serious Artistry and just write something silly?” She was already working on funny pieces. It couldn’t hurt to remix her own work.
So, she wrote a short humor piece loosely inspired by her novel, and thought, “why not aim for the biggest rejection I can get?” Bizzy emailed the story to The New Yorker, who accepted the piece.
She was floored and it was a turning point — humor was more than just a side passion project; it was the path she was meant to follow.
This led to the proudest moment in Bizzy’s career when she was accepted for a MacDowell Colony fellowship in 2017. It was inspiring for her to know that as a humor writer, she was still considered a “real” writer and would be welcomed into this prestigious residency.
This turn of events in her style and tone has led to a years-long collaboration with the musical theater writing duo made up of playwright Tim Aumiller and composer Scott Schneider who are known as NO HOPE Productions. The three of them have written a couple of disturbing musicals that have never made it to the stage- fingers crossed we see playbills written by Bizzy for them in the 2020s though. Bizzy added, “Tim and I have very different creative processes, so it’s fun for us to challenge each other.”
When she’s not busy copywriting or churning out hilarious comedic pieces, Bizzy is sharing her heavily-researched, weekly Twitter thread #Scribblewits that pays homage to history’s wittiest women. She says, “It’s amazing to look back in time and realize all of the funny women you’ve never heard of whose legacy has been lost to the ages.” These days, she often finds herself spending hours writing about these fantastically funny ladies of history. If you want to get in on the action, search for the hashtag every Thursday for Bizzy’s newest discovery.
What does the future hold for Coy? Who knows for any of us? Either way, in five years, Bizzy sees herself swathed in expensive linen, wearing huge glasses, a big sunhat and chunky jewelry talking about “the olden days.”
Well, folks, we’ve reached the end.
When we set out, I told you Bizzy was a gifted writer and now you’re probably itching to read some of her original content. To do so, I recommend following Bizzy on Instagram and Twitter to become acquainted with her: for longer form materials, check out her website and newsletter.
Also! Please get in touch with Bizzy if you know of a witty woman who deserves to be featured for #Scribblewits and she’ll schedule them for a showcase.
Finally, since Bizzy has such excellent taste, you may want to keep an eye on what Coy’s been checking out during quarantine. Here’s a quick hit list:
TV: Strangers with Candy. The Comeback. I Think You Should Leave.
Movies: Jurassic Park. A League of Their Own. Mad Max: Fury Road.
Books: Tim Reiterman’s Raven: The Untold Story of the Rev. Jim Jones and His People. Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad. The poetry of Mary Oliver.
