Work samples
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The Cornshuck DollyPhoto of the author's great-grandmother and great-great-grandmother, undated
My in-progress collection of family-inspired historical fiction chronicles a clan of Blue Ridge mountaineers across generations, beginning with this account from Virginia “Jincy” Clatterbuck (approx. 6,600* words, fiction).
*Baker jurors and GBCA staff may read the full story under Projects: Full-Length Work Samples.
Excerpt from
THE CORNSHUCK DOLLY
by
M. Jane Taylor
Lady stamps her feet and flares her nostrils like it’s another storm a-coming, though the sky ain’t show no sign as of yet. Git-up! I tell her and pop the reins, and then her and me and the baby set forth down the rimy hillside towards the ice-capped eastern ridgeline and the frigid yeller sun what is finally jist now a-rising, whilst it’s been light out for well-nigh two hours.
We pick our way southwards along Copperhead Crick Road, a narrow and winding trail what hugs tight to the side of Widders Ridge, from whence it snakes down, down, down through Clatterbuck Gap, down towards Whistlepig Holler, with the hill on the one side, and the deep gorge on t’other, and here the road twists up and down and up agin, then down and down round Horseshoe Bend—whither I call out to Lady, Whoa girl! Who-a! and steer her leftways to the middle of the path, or anyways what I divine to be the path, as the passage here can prove troublesome enough to navigate by wagon, beast, or foot even when it is not all mired by snow, and many a poor traveler has tumbled to their doom upon the jagged rocks below where the icy crick flows and they say that haints abide.
Snowdrifts blanket the holler, whilst the air swirls with powder crystals, and the barren trees glisten with hoarfrost. All sound is muffled. The drumbeat of the woodpecker. The prattle of the crick. The trill of the cardinal, a flash of red … and erelong the memory of Gramaw Sooky comes back to me, a-crooning and rocking me in her chair by the fire, and I sing to myself and the baby as we ride—
Will the circle be unbroken
By and by, oh by and by?
***
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Cap'm PotshotPhoto of the author's uncles with shotguns, circa 1946
Jincy’s ten-year-old son Elvin receives a special gift (approx. 6,000* words, fiction).
*Baker jurors and GBCA staff may read the full story under Projects: Full-Length Work Samples.
Excerpt from
CAP’M POTSHOT
by
M. Jane Taylor
Go on shoot it! Pap shoves the gun at me.
Shoot it where? I ask.
Pap’s a-chugging whiskey from his jug. Anywheres, he answers. O’er yonder there—he says, pointing towards Abe atop the shithouse—that old boy ’tacked me agin and cut up my thighs, when I goed to shovel out the henhouse t’other day! Go on murder that sonabitch!
I have never fired a shotgun, but I know how to shoot and have shot Pap’s hog rifle a number of times, and so I take and shoulder Cap’m Potshot and pull the hammers to full cock. But Cap’m Potshot is bigger and heavier than the hog rifle, and I am too small to wield it properly, I have got to tilt way back and try and balance it with the buttstock braced aginst my upper arm, where there is not much meat for cushion.
Hold ’er steady, Pap instructs me. Don’t put no death grip on it!
I drawl a breath in and point the barrels at the shithouse, then settle the bead smack-dab on Abe’s red cockscomb.
***
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Appalachian PowerPhoto of the author's mother (third from left), aunts, and uncle in fodder field, circa 1945
Elvin’s eldest child Tildy weaves this tale of rural electrification in Southwest Virginia (approx. 3,500* words, fiction).
*Baker jurors and GBCA staff may read the full story under Projects: Full-Length Work Samples.
Excerpt from
APPALACHIAN POWER
by
M. Jane Taylor
The juice don’t never git tard!
Daddy has got the Sears catalog open to the warshin' machine ad.
And this here Maytag, he tells Mama—tapping the page with his bony finger—why it’ll do all the work!
Mama shakes her head. She is mending my blue dress what got snagged and tore on a juice-pole splinter. You know we canny ’ford no warsher, Elvin! she sighs. We canny ’ford no fifty-cent pot to piss in!
Us kids, meantime, is jist having ourselves a ball as we flip the light switch off and on and off and on and off and—
Stop that! Mama and Daddy both tell us at the same time.
So I flip the switch back on agin, and then I stand in the middle of the floor in my petticoat and gaze upwards into the nekkid lightbulb what dangles down from a ceiling beam, till hot-scorching teardrops trickle down my cheekbones, and the ember phantom of the orange glowing wire is seared onto my sore and itchy eyeballs.
Daddy shuts the catalog and goes outside to smoke.
***
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Mama SnakePhoto of the author and her mother, circa 1973
Tildy’s daughter Cricket is pulled between worlds as she reckons with her family’s legacy (approx. 11,000* words, fiction).
*Baker jurors and GBCA staff may read the full story under Projects: Full-Length Work Samples.
Excerpt from
MAMA SNAKE
by
M. Jane Taylor
When I was a baby just learning to walk, my family rode out to visit my brother Kyle who was incarcerated at a forestry camp for male juvenile offenders, and along the way, we stopped at the Devils Backbone overlook along the Maryland-West Virginia line. This was my first time viewing the mountains, and I was so enthralled by the sight of those dusky blue peaks that I tore off running across the rocky outcrop and disappeared into the overgrown weeds and brush. My mother went hysterical—yet she could not bring herself to go after me for her dread of snakes—and to this day she likes to recount this story and warrants that if my father hadn’t tracked me down and snared me, then I sure as shit would have been struck by a timbler rattler or plummeted to my death off the ridge.
Years later, I did get bit by a snake when Danny and me were exploring a tumbledown barn off Whiskey Bottom Road, and I thought it was just a bee sting until we got back to Danny’s pickup truck and I pulled down my sock to reveal two crimson holes in my calf. It bled and swelled some, but it wasn’t too bad. I figured it was probably a ratsnake. Then the next day, I happened to mention it to Danny’s stepfather who hunts and all, and he had a look at the wound and informed me that it was from a venemous snake, likely a copperhead or a cottonmouth. It turns out that pit vipers have a limited supply of venom and will sometimes chomp with what they call a dry bite, wherein no poison is injected.
Anyhow, I guess I got lucky.
***
About M. Jane
M. Jane Taylor’s historical fiction chronicles a clan of Appalachian mountaineers across generations, from the Blue Ridge highlands to the D.C.-Maryland lowlands. Taylor earned a Master of Arts in Writing from Johns Hopkins and was honored with the Outstanding Graduate Award, and she is a recipient of the Maryland State Arts Council's Regional Independent Artist Award and MSAC Grants for Artists. She lives in Baltimore with her wife, actor Autumn Breaud, and their two children.
The Cornshuck Dolly (linked stories)
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The author's great-uncle and cousins with horse-drawn hay wagon, circa 1946The Hillbilly Highway
The early-to-mid-1900s saw a mass outmigration of Southern Appalachians to the industrial cities of the North and elsewhere, and my family was drawn into the exodus out of the Blue Ridge, along with droves of poor hills farmers and sharecroppers who sought jobs and other opportunities in Washington, D.C., and Baltimore. To date, I have penned seven stories for inclusion in The Cornshuck Dolly, out of a projected baker's dozen, which now comprise nearly 40,000 words and 150 manuscript pages.
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The author with her school lunch pail, 1977A Word on Dialect and Vernacular
Who dictates the rules of language, which is our human birthright, and which has evolved naturally over time and was forged through the confluence of culture and geography?
Growing up in a family wherein nonstandard English was spoken, I gained a keen awareness of language early on. I can remember kids at school telling me that I sounded like I was “from the country,” which was in no way meant as a compliment. Then I was placed in speech therapy in the sixth grade, and in my shame I would hassle and badger my parents and other family members about their “poor” grammar and pronunciations.
Perhaps the stories in The Cornshuck Dolly are my way of trying to make some amends for all that.
While nonstandard dialect or vernacular writing has experienced shifts in popularity and was highly fashionable in the 19th and early 20th centuries, it is currently taboo for most literary journals and publishers, wherein the presiding thought is that it is too challenging for readers. When I first set out to write dialect, I looked to the works of past Southern writers including William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Mark Twain, Zora Neale Hurston, Flannery O’Connor, and many others, to see and study how they each had done it, but in the end I knew that I must create my own system that is tailored to my characters and intrinsic to their stories. In this effort, I have developed a lexicon and style guide that now totals twenty-plus pages and holds my detailed notes on syntax and grammar, pronunciations, and spelling.
Personally, I love to read dialect. I crave its freedom, its realism, and its power, and I believe that it bears an important place in our society and our history. One of my aims as a writer is to give voice to characters who may not have much voice or agency in the literary canon or the world at large, despite the prevailing guidance to dampen and dilute regional dialects and vernacular. And while I admit that it's not for everyone or every reader—after all, what is?—the fact remains that great literary works such as As I Lay Dying, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and Their Eyes Were Watching God are still read widely and with pleasure, along with more contemporary vernacular fiction, including Alice Walker's The Color Purple and Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting.
Above all, I hope that my stories entertain and that they spur readers to think, feel, imagine, and perchance fall in love with the characters and lives therein.
***
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The Cornshuck DollyPhoto of the author's great-grandmother and great-great-grandmother, undated
My in-progress collection of family-inspired historical fiction chronicles a clan of Blue Ridge mountaineers across generations, beginning with this account from Virginia “Jincy” Clatterbuck (approx. 6,600* words, fiction).
*Baker jurors and GBCA staff may read the full story under Projects: Full-Length Work Samples.
Excerpt from
THE CORNSHUCK DOLLY
by
M. Jane Taylor
Lady stamps her feet and flares her nostrils like it’s another storm a-coming, though the sky ain’t show no sign as of yet. Git-up! I tell her and pop the reins, and then her and me and the baby set forth down the rimy hillside towards the ice-capped eastern ridgeline and the frigid yeller sun what is finally jist now a-rising, whilst it’s been light out for well-nigh two hours.
We pick our way southwards along Copperhead Crick Road, a narrow and winding trail what hugs tight to the side of Widders Ridge, from whence it snakes down, down, down through Clatterbuck Gap, down towards Whistlepig Holler, with the hill on the one side, and the deep gorge on t’other, and here the road twists up and down and up agin, then down and down round Horseshoe Bend—whither I call out to Lady, Whoa girl! Who-a! and steer her leftways to the middle of the path, or anyways what I divine to be the path, as the passage here can prove troublesome enough to navigate by wagon, beast, or foot even when it is not all mired by snow, and many a poor traveler has tumbled to their doom upon the jagged rocks below where the icy crick flows and they say that haints abide.
Snowdrifts blanket the holler, whilst the air swirls with powder crystals, and the barren trees glisten with hoarfrost. All sound is muffled. The drumbeat of the woodpecker. The prattle of the crick. The trill of the cardinal, a flash of red … and erelong the memory of Gramaw Sooky comes back to me, a-crooning and rocking me in her chair by the fire, and I sing to myself and the baby as we ride—
Will the circle be unbroken
By and by, oh by and by?
***
-
Cap'm PotshotPhoto of the author's uncles with shotguns, circa 1946
Jincy’s ten-year-old son Elvin receives a special gift (approx. 6,000* words, fiction).
*Baker jurors and GBCA staff may read the full story under Projects: Full-Length Work Samples.
Excerpt from
CAP’M POTSHOT
by
M. Jane Taylor
Go on shoot it! Pap shoves the gun at me.
Shoot it where? I ask.
Pap’s a-chugging whiskey from his jug. Anywheres, he answers. O’er yonder there—he says, pointing towards Abe atop the shithouse—that old boy ’tacked me agin and cut up my thighs, when I goed to shovel out the henhouse t’other day! Go on murder that sonabitch!
I have never fired a shotgun, but I know how to shoot and have shot Pap’s hog rifle a number of times, and so I take and shoulder Cap’m Potshot and pull the hammers to full cock. But Cap’m Potshot is bigger and heavier than the hog rifle, and I am too small to wield it properly, I have got to tilt way back and try and balance it with the buttstock braced aginst my upper arm, where there is not much meat for cushion.
Hold ’er steady, Pap instructs me. Don’t put no death grip on it!
I drawl a breath in and point the barrels at the shithouse, then settle the bead smack-dab on Abe’s red cockscomb.
***
-
Appalachian PowerPhoto of the author's mother (third from left), aunts, and uncle in fodder field, circa 1945
Elvin’s eldest child Tildy weaves this tale of rural electrification in Southwest Virginia (approx. 3,500* words, fiction).
*Baker jurors and GBCA staff may read the full story under Projects: Full-Length Work Samples.
Excerpt from
APPALACHIAN POWER
by
M. Jane Taylor
The juice don’t never git tard!
Daddy has got the Sears catalog open to the warshin' machine ad.
And this here Maytag, he tells Mama—tapping the page with his bony finger—why it’ll do all the work!
Mama shakes her head. She is mending my blue dress what got snagged and tore on a juice-pole splinter. You know we canny ’ford no warsher, Elvin! she sighs. We canny ’ford no fifty-cent pot to piss in!
Us kids, meantime, is jist having ourselves a ball as we flip the light switch off and on and off and on and off and—
Stop that! Mama and Daddy both tell us at the same time.
So I flip the switch back on agin, and then I stand in the middle of the floor in my petticoat and gaze upwards into the nekkid lightbulb what dangles down from a ceiling beam, till hot-scorching teardrops trickle down my cheekbones, and the ember phantom of the orange glowing wire is seared onto my sore and itchy eyeballs.
Daddy shuts the catalog and goes outside to smoke.
***
-
Mama SnakePhoto of the author and her mother, circa 1973
Tildy’s daughter Cricket is pulled between worlds as she reckons with her family’s legacy (approx. 11,000* words, fiction).
*Baker jurors and GBCA staff may read the full story under Projects: Full-Length Work Samples.
Excerpt from
MAMA SNAKE
by
M. Jane Taylor
When I was a baby just learning to walk, my family rode out to visit my brother Kyle who was incarcerated at a forestry camp for male juvenile offenders, and along the way, we stopped at the Devils Backbone overlook along the Maryland-West Virginia line. This was my first time viewing the mountains, and I was so enthralled by the sight of those dusky blue peaks that I tore off running across the rocky outcrop and disappeared into the overgrown weeds and brush. My mother went hysterical—yet she could not bring herself to go after me for her dread of snakes—and to this day she likes to recount this story and warrants that if my father hadn’t tracked me down and snared me, then I sure as shit would have been struck by a timbler rattler or plummeted to my death off the ridge.
Years later, I did get bit by a snake when Danny and me were exploring a tumbledown barn off Whiskey Bottom Road, and I thought it was just a bee sting until we got back to Danny’s pickup truck and I pulled down my sock to reveal two crimson holes in my calf. It bled and swelled some, but it wasn’t too bad. I figured it was probably a ratsnake. Then the next day, I happened to mention it to Danny’s stepfather who hunts and all, and he had a look at the wound and informed me that it was from a venemous snake, likely a copperhead or a cottonmouth. It turns out that pit vipers have a limited supply of venom and will sometimes chomp with what they call a dry bite, wherein no poison is injected.
Anyhow, I guess I got lucky.
***
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The Cornshuck Dolly Family TreeI created this family tree for the interrelated characters in The Cornshuck Dolly, which remains a work in progress.
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The author's grandfather, cousin, and uncle in the Virginia mountains, 1940s"Y'all come back!"
Behave, Sissy!
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Story ExcerptI composed "Behave, Sissy!" from the third-person point of view, prior to my honing of the direct narrative style employed in The Cornshuck Dolly.
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Abundant Grace Book CoverPainting by artist Lisa Montag Brotman.
Lewis and Clark
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Voices From the TrailLewis and Clark: Voices from the Trail includes journal excerpts from the Lewis and Clark Expedition, along with photos, maps, documents, and period illustrations.
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Hard GoingSetting Out Upriver chapter excerpt.
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A Frugal FeastSetting Out Upriver chapter excerpt.
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SmallpoxSetting Out Upriver chapter excerpt.
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The Hill of DemonsSetting Out Upriver chapter excerpt.
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High Plains Haute CuisineHigher Ground chapter excerpt.
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"Slaughter River"Higher Ground chapter excerpt.
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The Gates of the MountainsOver the Rockies chapter excerpt.
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Mountain DiplomacyOver the Rockies chapter excerpt.
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Pests Great and SmallA Hazardous Homecoming chapter excerpt.
Architecture Styles Spotter’s Guide
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Classical Temples to Soaring SkyscrapersThis pocket guidebook contains photographs and detailed descriptions of an extensive catalog of architectural styles, from classical and high-style temples to log cabins and sod homes, as well as an illustrated glossery of architectural terms.
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Log Homes: The Log Cabin and VariationsThe New World chapter excerpt.
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Western Vernacular: Gold Fever Ghost TownsThe New World chapter excerpt.
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African Influences: Slave Houses and Shotgun HousesThe New World chapter excerpt.
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Saltbox Houses: Ubiquitous in New England, Commonly Called Catslides in the SouthThe New World chapter excerpt.
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Pennsylvania Dutch: Hex Signs and Rustic FarmsteadsThe New World chapter excerpt.
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Sod Homes: Soddy Brick Houses Inspired by Native Plains People DwellingsThe New World chapter excerpt.
The Ultimate Dream Decoder
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Revealing the Secrets of Your Subconscious MindBook cover for U.S.A. edition.
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Archetypal and Symbolic FiguresAmazon/Huntress
Anima
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Spirituality & The SupernaturalFairies, Elves & Imps
Ghosts
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The HomeAttics
Basements
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Anxiety DreamsImprisonment
Invisibility
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TravelBoats
Bridges
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The Animal KingdomAsses & Mules
Bats
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The Animal KingdomFish
Foxes
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The Plant KingdomFlowers
Forests & Woods
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The Elements and LandscapesHills & Mountains
Ice & Snow
Freelance Book Editing
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Brooks Robards, Historic America: The Southwest2002. Thunder Bay Press, San Diego.
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Samuel Willard Crompton and Michael J. Rhein, The Ultimate Book of Lighthouses: History-Legend-Lore-Design-Technology-Romance2003 and 2007. Thunder Bay Press, San Diego.
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Kim Manfredi, Yoga Basics: An Introduction to the Path2012. Charm City Yoga, Baltimore.
Cover art (image of the Hindu deity Ganesha) by Kim Manfredi. Cover design by Jerry Rubino.
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Benezit Dictionary of Artists (14 volumes; first English translation)2006. Editions Gründ, Paris, France.
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Helen Stillwell, Dogs: An Owner's Guide2003. Thunder Bay Press, San Diego.
Journalism
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Co-sponsor 'Sabotages' Maryland Civil Rights BillActivists Heartbroken After Bill Fails by One Vote
The Washington Blade (D.C. Metro and national LGBTQ news)
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State Hate Crimes Legislation: Turning Words Into ProtectionRecent Crimes Breed 'Smoke and Mirror' Bills
The Washington Blade (D.C. Metro and national LGBTQ news)
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ACLU Targets Maryland Sodomy Law + What the Law SaysThe Washington Blade (D.C. Metro and national LGBTQ news)
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The Biz of AID$: Follow the MoneyDealing with AIDS--and AIDS Inc.--Isn't Fun and Games. Here's a Practice Round for the Real Thing
POZ magazine (HIV/AIDS news and interests)
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Lesbian Killing Puts Focus on YouthFour Young Women Acknowledge Role in Housemate's Death
The Washington Blade (D.C. Metro and national LGBTQ news)
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Maryland Rights Bill up for Eighth TimeSenators Befuddled by Sexual Orientation, Transgender Issues
The Washington Blade (D.C. Metro and national LGBTQ news)
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ObituariesHarvey Dulaney, AKA 'Broadway Betty,' Dies
The Washington Blade (D.C. Metro and national LGBTQ news)
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A Crabby Day in Maryland + Do Controversial Tactics by Activists Help or Hurt?Dead Crabs Sent to Legislators Who Voted Against Right Bill
The Washington Blade (D.C. Metro and national LGBTQ news)
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'Everything We've Attained, We've Had to Fight For'Lesbian Running for Baltimore County Sheriff Says 'Destiny' Has Pointed Her to Seek Office
The Washington Blade (D.C. Metro and national LGBTQ news)
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Victory for Maryland ParentsState's High Court Upholds Gay Dad's Visitation Rights
The Washington Blade (D.C. Metro and national LGBTQ news)
Arts and Culture
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The Novelist as PoetIn Lesbian Author Jeanette Winterson's 11th Book, Lighthousekeeping, She Effectively Reveals to Readers the Power of Storytelling
The Washington Blade (D.C. Metro and national LGBTQ news)
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The RideCity Ranch Puts Baltimore Kids on Horseback, and Hopefully on the Right Path
Baltimore City Paper
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Dorian Gray Returns as Anthony GoicoleaArtist's Work Captures Mysteries of Youth, Using Himself as Model
The Washington Blade (D.C. Metro and national LGBTQ news)
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Under the Boardwalk at Rehoboth BeachWhere Lesbian Weekend is Every Weekend
Curve magazine (national and international)
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Oh! Baltimore!Charm City Dreams Strips Comedy to the Bare Essentials
Baltimore City Paper
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Lives Lost, Lives FoundThe Jewish Museum of Maryland
RADAR: Baltimore Arts & Culture
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Last CallPopular Showcase for Gay Musicians Prepares to Close
The Washington Blade (D.C. Metro and national LGBTQ news)
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Mt. RainierMaryland's Gay New World
The Washington Blade (D.C. Metro and national LGBTQ news)
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Music NotesSleater-Kinney's The Hot Rock
The Washington Blade (D.C. Metro and national LGBTQ news)
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Also PlayingDesperate Acquaintances + Sleight of Hand
The Washington Blade (D.C. Metro and national LGBTQ news)
