Charles Taylor Jr.

Last updated

Charles Taylor Jr. (born 1943) is an American author. He was born in Minneapolis, but lived most of his life in Texas. He no longer teaches creative writing at Texas A&M and started a small press called Slough Press, publishing from 1973 to 2011.[ citation needed ] His contribution to building the literature scene in Austin, Texas, includes activities as both a writer and publisher. He published leading poets, fiction, and non-fiction writers, whose books received numerous awards and were sometimes later published by larger presses. His poetry collection What do You Want, Blood? received the 1988 Austin Book Award.[ citation needed ] He has taught in the NEA Poets-in-the-Schools Program and was CETA Poet-in-Residence for the City of Salt Lake.[ citation needed ]

Contents

Along with his ex-wife, Pat Littledog, Taylor co-operated one of the Paperbacks Plus Books in Austin, Texas, from 1980 to 1988. The store became an important literary center for the Southwest sponsoring literary readings and plays as well as serving as a home for Slough Press.[ citation needed ] Business owners John and Marquetta Tilton of Dallas opened several store locations run by famous Texas poets and writers who had not yet achieved widespread notoriety: poet Dr. Ricardo Sánchez in San Antonio and Dr. Hedwig Gorski's infamous Voltaire's Basement bookstore in downtown Austin. All branches of Paperbacks Plus allowed serious poets to live with their families on the store premises while providing a small income managing or selling at the location.[ citation needed ] Each became a hub of literary and performance activities across generations and styles nurturing the offbeat talents and lifestyles Central Texas is known for. These activities, venues, and people set the stage during the late 1970s and 80s for Austin Poetry Slam scenes. [1]

College Instructor

Taylor retired as Coordinator of Creative Writing in the English Department of Texas A&M University at College Station teaching creative writing there for 21 years. [2]

He specialized in creative writing (poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction), composition and technical writing for international students, and literature of the Beat Movement.[ citation needed ]

Education

He received his MA in English from the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa.[ citation needed ] He received his PhD in English from Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois.[ citation needed ]

Publications

Poetry titles

Memoir

Fiction titles

Anthologies (poetry, fiction, and essays)

Notes and references

  1. "The Austin Poetry Slam - History". Archived from the original on 28 August 2008. Retrieved 2011-01-28.
  2. "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 15 June 2010. Retrieved 2010-04-18.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Iain Sinclair</span> British writer

Iain Sinclair FRSL is a writer and filmmaker. Much of his work is rooted in London, recently within the influences of psychogeography.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Malcolm Cowley</span> American writer (1898–1989)

Malcolm Cowley was an American writer, editor, historian, poet, and literary critic. His best known works include his first book of poetry, Blue Juniata (1929), and his memoir, Exile's Return, written as a chronicler and fellow traveller of the Lost Generation and an influential editor and talent scout at Viking Press.

Zulfikar Ghose was a Pakistani-American novelist, poet and essayist. His works are primarily magical realism, blending fantasy and harsh realism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hayden Carruth</span> American poet and literary critic

Hayden Carruth was an American poet, literary critic and anthologist. He taught at Syracuse University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rigoberto González</span> American writer and book critic (born 1970)

Rigoberto González is an American writer and book critic. He is an editor and author of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and bilingual children's books, and self-identifies in his writing as a gay Chicano. His most recent project is Latino Poetry, a Library of America anthology, which gathers verse that spans from the 17th century to the present day. His memoir What Drowns the Flowers in Your Mouth: A Memoir of Brotherhood was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Autobiography. He is the 2015 recipient of the Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Publishing Triangle, the 2020 recipient of the PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry, and the 2024 recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Los Angeles Review of Books.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alurista</span> American poet and activist

Alberto Baltazar Urista Heredia, better known by his nom de plume Alurista, is an American poet and activist. His work was influential in the Chicano Movement and is important to the field of Chicano poetry.

Barbara Hamby is an American poet, fiction writer, editor, and critic.

Pattiann Rogers is an American poet, and a recipient of the Lannan Literary Award for Poetry. In 2018, she was awarded a special John Burroughs Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Nature Poetry.

K. L. Cook is an American writer from Texas. He is the author of Last Call (2004), a collection of linked stories spanning thirty-two years in the life of a West Texas family, the novel, The Girl From Charnelle (2006), and the short story collection, Love Songs for the Quarantined (2011). His most recent books are a collection of short stories, Marrying Kind (2019), a collection of poetry, Lost Soliloquies (2019), and The Art of Disobedience: Essays on Form, Fiction, and Influence (2020). He co-directs the MFA Program in Creative Writing & Environment at Iowa State University and teaches in the low-residency MFA in Writing Program at Spalding University.

Michael Simms is an American poet, novelist and literary publisher. His satiric novel Bicycles of the Gods: A Divine Comedy and his YA speculative fiction trilogy The Green Mage, Windkeep and The Blessed Isle were published by Madville Publishing, and his most recent poetry collections are American Ash (2020), Nightjar (2021) and Strange Meadowlark (2023) published by Ragged Sky Press. His poems and essays have been published in journals and magazines including Scientific American, Poetry Magazine, Black Warrior Review, Mid-American Review, Pittsburgh Quarterly, Southwest Review, Plume and West Branch. His poems have also appeared in Poem-a-Day published by the Academy of American Poets and been read by Garrison Keillor on the nationally syndicated radio show The Writer's Almanac. Simms's poems have been translated into Spanish, Russian and Arabic. In 2011, the Pennsylvania Legislature awarded Simms a Certificate of Recognition for his service to the arts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Boey Kim Cheng</span> Singapore-born Australian poet

Boey Kim Cheng is a Singaporean Australian poet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Phillips (poet)</span> American poet and academic (1938–2022)

Robert Schaeffer Phillips was an American poet and professor of English at the University of Houston. He was the author or editor of more than 30 volumes of poetry, fiction, poetry criticism and other works.

Robert Lacy is an American writer whose short stories and essays have been published in a large number of publications including The Best American Short Stories, Ploughshares, The Oxford American, Virginia Quarterly Review and The Gettysburg Review. He has also published several books of fiction and essays.

Reginald Gibbons is an American poet, fiction writer, translator, and literary critic. He is the Frances Hooper Professor of Arts and Humanities, Emeritus, at Northwestern University. Gibbons has published numerous books, including 11 volumes of poems, translations of poetry from ancient Greek, Spanish, and co-translations from Russian. He has published short stories, essays, reviews and art in journals and magazines, has held Guggenheim Foundation and NEA fellowships in poetry and a research fellowship from the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington D.C. For his novel, Sweetbitter, he won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award; for his book of poems, Maybe It Was So, he won the Carl Sandburg Prize. He has won the Folger Shakespeare Library's O. B. Hardison, Jr. Poetry Prize, and other honors, among them the inclusion of his work in Best American Poetry and Pushcart Prize anthologies. His book Creatures of a Day was a Finalist for the 2008 National Book Award for poetry. His other poetry books include Sparrow: New and Selected Poems, Last Lake and Renditions, his eleventh book of poems. Two books of poems are forthcoming: Three Poems in 2024 and Young Woman With a Cane in 2025. He has also published two collections of very short fiction, Five Pears or Peaches and An Orchard in the Street.

Floyd Skloot is an American poet, novelist, and memoirist. Some of his work concerns his experience with neurological damage caused by a virus contracted in 1988.

Eve Shelnutt was an American poet and writer of short stories. She lived in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Athens, Ohio, and Worcester, Massachusetts. Over the course of her career, she taught at Western Michigan University University of Pittsburgh, Ohio University, and The College of the Holy Cross.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jack Elliott Myers</span> American poet and educator (1941–2009)

Jack Elliott Myers, was an American poet and educator. He was Texas Poet Laureate in 2003, and served on the faculty of Southern Methodist University in Dallas for more than 30 years. He was director of creative writing at SMU from 2001 through 2009. Myers co-founded The Writer's Garret, a nonprofit literary center in Dallas, with his wife, Thea Temple. He published numerous books of and about poetry, and served as a mentor for aspiring writers at SMU and as part of the writers' community and mentoring project of The Writer's Garret.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steve Kistulentz</span> American novelist and poet (born 1967)

Steve Kistulentz is an American novelist, poet, and screenwriter. He is the founding director of the graduate creative writing program at Saint Leo University in Florida. He is no longer serving as the Poet Laureate of Safety Harbor, FL. after admitting to transmitting child pornography.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Van G. Garrett</span> American poet

Van G. Garrett is an American poet, novelist, teacher, and photographer. Garrett's poetry has appeared in a number of well-known American literary journals, including: African American Review; The Amistad; ChickenBones; Drumvoices Revue; Obsidian III; phati'tude Literary Magazine; Pittsburgh Quarterly; Potomac Review; and StepAway Magazine. His works have also been published internationally, including in: Istanbul Literature Review (Turkey); One Ghana, One Voice; Poems Niederngasse (Switzerland); and White Chimney (UK). Garrett often writes poetry with haiku or kwansaba structures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jasminne Mendez</span> American poet

Jasminne Mendez is an Afro-Latino American author, poet, playwright, performer and educator. She is a co-founder and the program director for Tintero Projects. She is co-host on the poetry and writing podcast series, InkWell, a collaboration between Tintero Projects and Inprint Houston. Mendez is a CantoMundo Fellow, a Kenyon Review Writer's Workshop Peter Taylor Fellow and a Macondo and Voices of our Nations Arts Foundation (VONA) alumni.