- Kent Nussey, author of A Love Supreme
"Taylor
provides her reader with a sophisticated and textured humanity. She is
able to find epiphanies in the common, everyday lives of her characters
as they come to life in a complex emotional landscape."
- Mike O'Connor, Publisher, Insomniac Press
"From
the challenging to the poignant to the intriguing situations in which
Gail Taylor's characters find themselves, they move through their rural
or urban landscapes clumsily, slyly, eerily, imaginatively, always with a
purpose and determination that ultimately renders transparent the
wonder found in the best contemporary short fiction."
- Janis Rapoport, author of After Paradise
"Elegant, scenic, stories that leap with equal grace from kingdoms as diverse as farmlands to night classes and private urban households, all powered by Gail Taylor's extraordinary insight into the pain and beauty of human relationships."
- Marnie Woodrow, author of Spelling Mississippi
COMMENTARIES
on the Short Story
"A Good Belief is Hard to Find"
in
THREE STORIES
VOLUME V 2007
U of T/Random House of Canada
"The story 'A Good Belief is Hard to Find' displays the twinned virtues of intellectual engagement and precision of tone . . . a marvel of technical control . . . The title's deliberate echo of Flannery O'Connor provides a clue that we are witnessing here a voice, and a revelation, more than a story. Plainness is usually a narrative virtue, especially in short fiction, but Gail Taylor's story reminds us of the luscious occasional treat of complexity."
- Mark Kingwell, Professor of Philosophy, Trinity College, University of Toronto, in "Three Stories," Random House of Canada, 2007.
"Gail
Taylor's 'A Good Belief is Hard to Find' will . . . cause you to
rethink the emotional physics of reason and faith. [This story] . . .
stayed in my mind long after I finished reading . . .
- Marilynn Booth, Director, School of Continuing Studies, University of Toronto, in "Three Stories," Random House of Canada, 2007.
Printed by Permission of Punkin House Press
Photography by Alex Taylor
"Dead husbands return and farm boys draw like angles. Gail Taylor's compasssionate and surprising stories shock us, delight us, make us see the world new once more. Read them!"
- Kim Echlin, author of The Disappeared, 2009 Giller Shortlist
"The prairies serve as setting, muse and antagonist in Gail Taylor's Tornado and Other Seasons, but unlike the topography that haunts Taylor's imagination, her prose is never flat. Whether it's a noisy twister carving through an innocent house, or the quieter swirl of familial heartache, these stories will spin the reader in rewarding new directions, leaving them dizzy with pleasure."
- Ryan Bigge, University of Toronto Instructor at the School of Continuing Studies, and author of
A Very Lonely PlanetCOMMENTARY
on the Short Story
"Night Class"
in
TORNADO and OTHER SEASONS
"Is it what you learn from a teacher of writing, or does the class show you what you need to learn about yourself?"
- The Piker Press , 2010-10-28
REVIEWS AND COMMENTARIES
on the Short Story
"A Good Belief is Hard to Find"
in
TORNADO and OTHER SEASONS
"Science and reason can explain much, but which perceives clearly, the mind or the heart, when something has no reason at all?"
- The Piker Press , 2010-11-15
