Author: Timothy Taylor

Music in the City and the Psyche

Update: 28 August 2012 The editors at Harpers have assigned the story. So this piece will be appearing in an upcoming issue of that great magazine. We’re very much interested in the story of PTSD and how it is illuminated by Christian Ellis’s story and the remarkable opera inspired by his experiences. That’s both sides […]

Creative Chaos Now Available in Paperback

Two things are happening right now that have an intense and resonant connection. The connection is forged by my knowledge that The Blue Light Project might never have been written were it not for the Red Gate. This is the piece of art that started my whole creative process.  It’s called Rise Fly Land and […]

The Stock Market with French Flaps

The Blue Light Project has been nominated for a CBC Bookie Award. Thanks to the CBC producers who included me on a list with Patrick deWitt, Esi Edugyen, Brian Francis and Elizabeth Hay. Those are amazing writers! I’m truly honored. That said, it’s fascinating that this particular novel would be nominated for this particular prize. […]

The Accidental Local

First published EnRoute Magazine We’ve been motoring seaward for about an hour when Roberto finally cuts the diesel. Brazil is a bare pencil line on the horizon, Monte Pascoal a tiny bump, as it must have been when Portuguese explorers first came across these cobalt blue waters 500 years ago, and I’m feeling more here than I […]

The Adventures of Generation F

From the November 2010 Issue of Cooking Light A couple of hours after setting foot in Brooklyn for the first time, I find the heart of the action. It’s 7 p.m. on a hot summer weeknight, and I’m hanging with a group of fashionable young people, all good-looking and under 30, who favor the uptown stylish […]

Willamette Wandering

It takes a while to reach the Willamette Valley in Oregon, but you’ll know it the moment you arrive. Out the interstate south of Portland, past King City and Sherwood, the strip malls and discount stores fall away and the fields open up to either side. Somewhere around Newberg – as the light grows golden […]

Negative Empathy

Should writers of fiction review the work of colleagues? I avoid it personally, and my rational for doing is the basis for my side of a debate that was part of the CBC Literary Smackdown series recently. The other side of the issue was taken by esteemed Victoria-based novelist and nonfiction writer Robert Weirsma, who also writes a lot of fine reviews. […]

Portlandia Update: Canada Days

I had the occasion to attend Canada Days in Portland, Oregon, not long ago. It’s a week-long celebration of Canadian industry, arts and culture, but it also added up to being the strangest trip south of 49 I’ve ever had. Until I received the email invitation, I had no idea there was such a festival, […]