Smells and Bells It was Dante who’d found the Professor’s body. Jeremy thought: of course. That strange friendship between his former boss and his father having forged hard after Jeremy fled his hometown. His two great would-be teachers seemed to have watched his flight leave together. Jeremy imagined them sitting in that little park at […]
Category: Blog
Notebooks: Stanley Park
Sometimes your notebooks surprise you. Here I discover that my character Trout (a kid) from my novel Stanley Park, was originally conceived as a Manchester United fan. The horror. Bear in mind this was written in 1996, just months before I discovered my admiration for the elegance and sophistication of the Chelsea Football Club. But that’s […]
Notebooks: The Blue Light Project – JermIX
JermIX is one of the artists that inspired me during the writing of my new novel, The Blue Light Project. It’s possible to know about JermIX (aka Jerm, aka Jerm9ine) and not even realize you know about him. That’s because he is one of the most prolific and dedicated street artists I’ve encountered. I’ll be posting lots […]
Gerriamos: the original Chef Barb Alexander design
One day, when I was about mid-way through writing Stanley Park, I took Chef Barb Alexander out for drinks at Il Capo to discuss restaurant design. I wanted her to explain to me what the inside of a place like the Monkey’s Paw might look like. I also wanted to know what a money-no-object restaurant kitchen might look like if she were […]
Rejection Slips
I’m not bitter. It was in fact a great day when I got these. Hand written notes from real live editors. I felt validated as a writer to have my rejection acknowledged in ink. Make no mistake, there was a time, a long time as I recall, when this kind of thing was what passed for feedback in […]
Soft Skull signs The Blue Light Project
The Blue Light Project will be published simultaneously in Canada and the US by Knopf Canada and the brilliant, edgy American independent Soft Skull. Trade announcement: Timothy Taylor’s Blue Light Project, a literary thriller that uses a four-day hostage siege in the not-too-distant future, during which a city unravels and three disparate lives intersect, to […]
Street art by Byron Cameraman and Rich S
The streets and walls of Vancouver’s downtown eastside have effectively been my notebooks during the writing of The Blue Light Project, my new novel coming out next year with Knopf Canada and Soft Skull in the US. I’ll post pictures of various artists here. But if there were a single image that started the book […]
The Wilde Room: Chapter 1
The Wilde Room When the Professor died, it was Dante who called. Jeremy picked up, standing in the alcove next to the reservation desk at The Wilde Room. And there he heard the voice of his long-ago mentor, tormentor, once-friend. He stood, watching his house manager Martine through the front window of the restaurant. Beautiful Martine, […]
Story House – the story molecule
From several years back. The image attached was my original conception of the novel Story House, including characters whose names later changed e.g. Freddy = Elliot. Rebecca became Esther. Various critics observed that the book was architectural. It was a built thing. Yes, indeed it was. Here is the wacky blueprint. I largely ignored it while writing, […]