M. Jane Taylor's portfolio

Work samples

The Cornshuck Dolly

Photo of the author's great-grandmother and great-great-grandmother, undated.
My in-progress book of family-based historical fiction chronicles a clan of Blue Ridge mountaineers across time, 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 Potshot

Photo of the author's uncles with shotguns, circa 1946.
Jincy’s 10-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 Power

Photo of the author's mother (third from left), aunts, and uncle, 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 warshing 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 Snake

Photo 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 family-based historical fiction chronicles a clan of Blue Ridge mountaineers across time, from the rural highlands to the urban lowlands. Taylor earned a Master of Arts in Writing from Johns Hopkins University 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)

My in-progress book of family-based historical fiction, The Cornshuck Dolly*, chronicles a clan of Blue Ridge mountaineers across time, from the rural highlands to the urban lowlands.

*Working title.

Photo of the author's great-uncle and cousins, circa 1946.

The early-to-mid-1900s saw a mass exodus 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 came to seek 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.
The Cornshuck Dolly

Photo of the author's great-grandmother and great-great-grandmother, undated.
My in-progress book of family-based historical fiction chronicles a clan of Blue Ridge mountaineers across time, 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 Potshot

Photo of the author's uncles with shotguns, circa 1946.
Jincy’s 10-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 Power

Photo of the author's mother (third from left), aunts, and uncle, 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 warshing 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 Snake

Photo 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.

***
The Cornshuck Dolly Family Tree

I created this family tree for the interrelated characters in The Cornshuck Dolly, which remains a work in progress.
Photo of the author, 1977

A 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 culture. 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 writing advice 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.

***

Full-Length Work Samples

Baker jurors and GBCA staff may read the full-length manuscripts of my four unpublished work samples below:

The Cornshuck Dolly (full story)

My in-progress book of family-based historical fiction chronicles a clan of Blue Ridge mountaineers across time, beginning with this account from Virginia “Jincy” Clatterbuck (approx. 6,600 words, fiction).
Cap'm Potshot (full story)

Jincy’s 10-year-old son Elvin receives a special gift (approx. 6,000 words, fiction).
Appalachian Power (full story)

Elvin’s eldest child Tildy weaves this tale of rural electrification in Southwest Virginia (approx. 3,500 words, fiction).
Mama Snake (full story)

Tildy’s daughter Cricket is pulled between worlds as she reckons with her family’s legacy (approx. 11,000 words, fiction).

Behave, Sissy!

My story "Behave, Sissy!" was published in Abundant Grace, Paycock Press's seventh volume of the "Grace & Gravity" series of fiction by D.C. area women writers, edited by Richard Peabody. A precursor to the The Cornshuck Dolly, "Behave, Sissy!" follows the adventures of Tildy Pettibone's wayward teenage daughter Sissy during the summer of 1973.

Excerpt from Behave, Sissy!

I wrote this story from the third-person point of view, prior to my honing of the direct narrative style employed in The Cornshuck Dolly.
Abundant Grace Book Cover

Painting by artist Lisa Montag Brotman.

Lewis and Clark

Preceding my inroad to fiction, my professional writing and editing spanned the fields of journalism, marketing and communications, academic and technical writing, science writing, grant writing, and nonfiction book publishing, including my work as a contributing editor for Michael Kerrigan's history book Lewis and Clark: Voices From the Trail (2004, Barnes & Noble Books, U.S.A.), for which I was tasked to translate the antiquated language, spelling, and punctuation in the journals of Lewis and Clark so that it might be better recognizable to a contemporary American audience.

Voices From the Trail

Lewis and Clark: Voices from the Trail includes journal excerpts from the Lewis and Clark Expedition, along with photos, maps, documents, and period illustrations.
Hard Going

Setting Out Upriver chapter excerpt.
A Frugal Feast

Setting Out Upriver chapter excerpt.
Smallpox

Setting Out Upriver chapter excerpt.
The Hill of Demons

Setting Out Upriver chapter excerpt.
High Plains Haute Cuisine

Higher Ground chapter excerpt.
"Slaughter River"

Higher Ground chapter excerpt.
The Gates of the Mountains

Over the Rockies chapter excerpt.
Mountain Diplomacy

Over the Rockies chapter excerpt.
Pests Great and Small

A Hazardous Homecoming chapter excerpt.

Architecture Styles Spotter’s Guide

I was a contributor to The New World and Victorian Styles chapters of Architecture Styles Spotter’s Guide: Classical Temples to Soaring Skyscrapers, edited by Sarah Cunliffe and Jean Loussier (2006, Thunder Bay Press, San Diego).

Classical Temples to Soaring Skyscrapers

This 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.
Log Homes: The Log Cabin and Variations

The New World chapter excerpt.
Western Vernacular: Gold Fever Ghost Towns

The New World chapter excerpt.
African Influences: Slave Houses and Shotgun Houses

The New World chapter excerpt.
Saltbox Houses: Ubiquitous in New England, Commonly Called Catslides in the South

The New World chapter excerpt.
Pennsylvania Dutch: Hex Signs and Rustic Farmsteads

The New World chapter excerpt.
Sod Homes: Soddy Brick Houses Inspired by Native Plains People Dwellings

The New World chapter excerpt.

The Ultimate Dream Decoder

I coauthored The Ultimate Dream Decoder: Revealing the Secrets of Your Subconscious Mind with historian and symbols expert Clare Gibson (2005, Barnes & Noble Books, U.S.A., and Saraband Ltd, Glasgow, Scotland, U.K.), which drew upon my interests in folklore and mythology, archetypes, and the unconconscious.

Revealing the Secrets of Your Subconscious Mind

Book cover for U.S.A. edition.
Archetypal and Symbolic Figures

Amazon/Huntress
Anima
Spirituality & The Supernatural

Fairies, Elves & Imps
Ghosts
The Home

Attics
Basements
Anxiety Dreams

Imprisonment
Invisibility
Travel

Boats
Bridges
The Animal Kingdom

Asses & Mules
Bats
The Animal Kingdom

Fish
Foxes
The Plant Kingdom

Flowers
Forests & Woods
The Elements and Landscapes

Hills & Mountains
Ice & Snow

Freelance Book Editing

In addition to the projects highlighted above, I have been a contributing editor on a number of other nonfiction books, a selection of which are shown here:

Brooks Robards, Historic America: The Southwest

2002. Thunder Bay Press, San Diego.
Samuel Willard Crompton and Michael J. Rhein, The Ultimate Book of Lighthouses: History-Legend-Lore-Design-Technology-Romance

2003 and 2007. Thunder Bay Press, San Diego.
Kim Manfredi, Yoga Basics: An Introduction to the Path

2012. Charm City Yoga, Baltimore.
Cover art (image of the Hindu deity Ganesha) by Kim Manfredi. Cover design by Jerry Rubino.
Benezit Dictionary of Artists (14 volumes; first English translation)

2006. Editions Gründ, Paris, France.
Helen Stillwell, Dogs: An Owner's Guide

2003. Thunder Bay Press, San Diego.

Journalism

I earned a master's degree in journalism from the University of Maryland, College Park, and first cut my teeth as a professional writer by stringing for various media outlets, as well as a two-year stint as a staff reporter for The Washington Blade LGBTQ newspaper in Washington, D.C., where I covered Maryland, D.C., Virginia, and national news.

Turning Words Into Protection: Recent Crimes Breed 'Smoke and Mirror' Bills

The Washington Blade (D.C. Metro and national LGBTQ news)
Co-sponsor 'sabotages' Maryland Civil Rights Bill

The Washington Blade (D.C. Metro and national LGBTQ news)
The Biz of AID$: Follow the Money

POZ magazine (HIV/AIDS news and interests)
ACLU Targets Maryland Sodomy Law

The Washington Blade (D.C. Metro and national LGBTQ news)
Lesbian Killing Puts Focus on Youth: Four Young Women Acknowledge Role in Housemate's Death

The Washington Blade (D.C. Metro and national LGBTQ news)
Maryland Rights Bill up for Eighth Time: Senators Befuddled by Sexual Orientation, Transgender Issues

The Washington Blade (D.C. Metro and national LGBTQ news)
News Obituary: Harvey Dulaney, aka 'Broadway Betty,' dies

The Washington Blade (D.C. Metro and national LGBTQ news)
A Crabby Day in Maryland: Dead Crabs Sent to Legislators who Voted Against Right Bill + Do Controversial Tactics by Activists Help or Hurt?

The Washington Blade (D.C. Metro and national LGBTQ news)
'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)
Victory for Maryland Parents: State's High Court Upholds Gay Dad's Visitation Rights

The Washington Blade (D.C. Metro and national LGBTQ news)

Arts and Culture

As an offshoot of my journalistic work, I have reviewed books, film, theater, music, visual arts, and culture for local and national newspapers and magazines.

The Ride: City Ranch Puts Baltimore kids on Horseback, and Hopefully on the Right Path

Baltimore City Paper
Dorian Gray Returns as Anthony Goicolea: Artist's Work Captures Mysteries of Youth, Using Himself as Model

The Washington Blade (D.C. Metro and national LGBTQ news)
The Novelist as Poet: Review of Jeanette Winterson's Lighthousekeeping

The Washington Blade (D.C. Metro and national LGBTQ news)
Under the Boardwalk at Rehoboth Beach: Where Lesbian Weekend is Every Weekend

Curve magazine (national and international)
Oh! Baltimore! Charm City Dreams Strips Comedy to the Bare Essentials

Baltimore City Paper
Lives Lost, Lives Found: The Jewish Museum of Maryland

RADAR: Baltimore Arts & Culture
Last Call: Popular Showcase for Gay Musicians Prepares to Close

The Washington Blade (D.C. Metro and national LGBTQ news)
Mt. Rainier: Maryland's Gay New World

The Washington Blade (D.C. Metro and national LGBTQ news)
Music Notes: Sleater-Kinney's The Hot Rock

The Washington Blade (D.C. Metro and national LGBTQ news)
Also Playing: Desperate Acquaintances and Sleight of Hand

The Washington Blade (D.C. Metro and national LGBTQ news)