Taylor Brown's Blog, page 7

Reading: Messages & Bottles, 5/29!

What: Messages & Bottles Reading Event

Who: Authors Steph Post, Schuler Benson, Beth Gilstrap, Taylor Brown

When: Friday, May 29 7:30 PM

Where: Palate Bottle Shop and Reserve

1007 North 4th St, Wilmington, North Carolina 28401.

I’m thrilled to be reading with three of my favorite writers at Palate on Friday, May 29.

Steph Post (A TREE BORN CROOKED, Pandamoon 2014)

Steph lives in St. Augustine, Florida, and she’s one of the most gracious writers I know. Here’s the rundown on her book:

A whirlwind road trip across the desolate Florida panhandle, as James Hart tries to stay one step ahead of the vengeful Alligator Mafia and keep his brother alive.

I actually blurbed Steph’s novel:

“Steph Post delivers a 12-gauge shotgun blast of country noir from the gun-shaped state, a grit-rich tale of blood and citrus sure to have you recalling the rough beauty of Daniel Woodrell’s work.”

Schuler Benson (THE POOR MAN’S GUIDE TO AN AFFORDABLE, PAINLESS SUICIDE, Alternating Current 2014)

Schuler, an Arkansas native, lives down in Myrtle Beach, where he’s completing his Master’s at Coastal Carolina University. His book was perhaps my favorite story collection of 2014.  Here’s the rundown:

Twelve stories, fraught with an unapologetic voice of firsthand experience, that pry the lock off of the addiction, fanaticism, violence, and fear of characters whose lives are mired in the darkness of isolation and the horror and the hilarity of the mundane. This is the Deep South: the dark territory of brine, pine, gravel, and red clay, where pavement still fears to tread.

Here’s what I wrote about it:

“I honestly can’t remember a voice this thrilling and fearless since Barry Hannah. These stories sing out at the edge of abandon, at the very edge of catching fire and burning you up. Schuler Benson is the real thing, and you should read this book before it internally combusts.

Beth Gilstrap (I AM BARBARELLA:  STORIES, Twelve Winters Press 2015)

Beth lives in Charlotte, and she’s Editor-in-Chief of Atticus Review. Here’s the rundown on her book.

This is a collection populated by characters at the fringes of contemporary society — working-class characters with a raging taste for self-destruction. Many of the stories take place in Charlotte, North Carolina — a place people rarely end up on purpose. These characters aren’t bankers or old money, nor entirely belles or rednecks, but some kind of poetry in between, always stumbling, and trying to survive. These are stories of how folks press on and reinvent themselves in a time when textile manufacturing is dead, and most of their friends and family have long since moved on.

Here’s the public url for the Facebook event:  https://www.facebook.com/events/960702297287753/

Reading: WHQR Studios, January 12!

I’m honored to be the first guest of the year for Prologue, the monthly book club co-sponsored by StarNews Media and WHQR Public Radio. I’ll be speaking, reading, and fielding readers’ questions beginning at 7 p.m. next Monday with Ben Steelman in the WHQR studios, upstairs at 254 N. Front Street (Wilmington, North Carolina). Admission is free, books will be for sale, and there will be refreshments. Come ask me about In the Season of Blood and Gold, Fallen Land, and anything that will be emba...

Debut Novel, Fallen Land, Coming from St. Martin’s!

I’m very, very, very happy to announce that St. Martin’s Press has acquired the rights to my debut novel, FALLEN LAND, for publication in 2016. It’s been a long road, and a hard one, and I can still hardly believe it. Here’s what was posted in Publisher’s Marketplace:

Montana Prize in Fiction winner Taylor Brown’s FALLEN LAND, pitched in the vein of early Cormac McCarthy and Tom Franklin, in which a pair of orphaned lovers–a desperate horse-thief and the pregnant daughter of a mountain doctor–...

Reading: Old Books on Front, September 21!

I am honored to announce that I’ll be reading with two of my favorite contemporary writers at Old Books on Front Street on September 21 at 7 pm. Here’s the lineup:

Erik Shonkwiler: author of Above All Men and “bastard love child of McCarthy, Hemingway, and Faulkner.” You can read my glowing review of Eric’s novel here.
Schuler Benson: author of The Poor Man’s Guide to an Affordable, Painless Suicide and “the spawn of Chuck Palahniuk and Barry Hannah.” I myself have called him the most “thrillin...

Interview with Sheldon Lee Compton: Sufficiently Bloodied

Recently Sheldon Lee Compton of Bent Country and Revolution John was kind enough to ask me for an interview, which you can read here. If you don’t know SLC, he’s the author of The Same Terrible Storm (Foxhead Books, 2012), nominated for the Thomas and Lillie D. Chaffin Award for Excellence in Appalachian Writing, and Where Alligators Sleep(Foxhead Books, 2014). His novel Brown Bottle comes out in 2015 from Artistically Declined Press. He is a four-time Pushcart Prize nominee, a judge’s select...

Review: ABOVE ALL MEN (Eric Shonkwiler)

I don’t usually review the books I read, but when I do it’s a book as good as Eric Shonkwiler’s Above All Men. There is a lot of comparing done these days of writers to Cormac McCarthy, and I find most such comparisons unmerited, to be honest.

Not in this case.

Rarely does a writer achieve heights that seem almost superhuman, that stun me because they’re just so damn good. Eric Shonkwiler does that, and does it with vicious restraint. I will not give you a synopsis; I will give you a passage:

An...

Interview with Steph Post (A TREE BORN CROOKED, Fall 2014)

Hey Everyone!

Steph Post, author of The Hunter, the Hunted and the Thief (2012) and A Tree Born Crooked (2014, Pandamoon Publishing), was kind enough to interview me about In the Season of Blood and Gold.Steph is one of my favorite bloggers, and she asked some really great questions. We discuss Daniel Woodrell and the “country noir” genre, violence in my work, and how I went about ordering the stories for the collection–among other things. Give it a read if you get a chance, and be sure to kee...

Buy a Signed First Edition!

Hey Everyone,

In the Season of Blood and Gold is now available via Amazon (paperback and Kindle) and Press 53. Here’s what Charles Dodd White (A Shelter of Others) has to say about the book:

“With ferocious economy and a great big heart, Taylor Brown writes one of the best debuts I’ve ever picked up. These are stories, verses, meditations, and accusations-everything, in short, you could hope to get from important fiction. This work demands your attention.”

But what if you want a signed copy with...

Interview with Triad Arts (88.5 WFDD)

I was lucky enough to be interviewed by the lovely Bethany Chafin of Triad Arts Weekend for 88.5 WFDD. You can listen to the segment here. My part starts about 17 minutes in, I think, after the piece on A Band Called Death. Bethany and I discuss the launch of In the Season of Blood and Gold, as well as the influence of music on my writing, my early days of making up stories, why my GI Joes had holes in their heels, and lots of other good stuff.

Taylor Brown’s debut collection of short fiction...

“World without End” Finalist for Doris Betts Fiction Prize!

I was honored to learn yesterday morning that my story “World without End” was selected as one of eight finalists for the Doris Betts Fiction Prize, sponsored by the North Carolina Writers’ Network and judged by Liza Wieland, editor of the North Carolina Literary Review. This story was inspired by the 1976 Oscar-winning documentary Harlan Country, USA, which followed 180 coalminers striking against Duke Power in southeast Kentucky. We all know about Harlan from watching Justified these days,...