C. M. Taylor

Born in Birmingham in 1972, C. M. Taylor has lived in West Yorkshire, Suffolk, Cambridge, Edinburgh, India, Spain and Brussels. He is married with two daughters and currently lives in Oxford.

C. M. Taylor has ghostwritten for an internationally best-selling author, and contributed material to Plan B's The Ballad of Belmarsh album.{{Cite web|url=http://www.thewoventalepress.net/2017/04/10/interview-cm-taylor/|title = Writer Interview: CM Taylor|date = 10 April 2017}} His journalism has appeared widely, including in The Guardian{{Cite web|last=Taylor|first=C. M.|date=2006-06-01|title=CM Taylor: War, Peace and cribbage|url=http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/jun/02/comment.books|access-date=2021-08-25|website=The Guardian|language=en}} and The Daily Telegraph.

Taylor's novel Cloven is a dark treatment of the BSE epidemic in Britain in the 1990s.{{Cite web|title=Review of Cloven|url=http://futurefire.net/archive/ookami.co.uk/cloven.html|url-status=live|access-date=2021-08-25|website=The Future Fire|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110720071943/http://futurefire.net/archive/ookami.co.uk/cloven.html |archive-date=2011-07-20 }}

The dystopian satire Grief was nominated for Best Book of the Year 2005 by the British Science Fiction Association[http://www.readreverb.com/index.php?s=news&p=news&m=24 Reverb publisher's announcement]readreverb.com {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090327115449/http://www.readreverb.com/index.php?s=news&p=news&m=24 |date=27 March 2009 }} and was described in the BSFA's review as a work of "breathtaking originality." Steve Redwood of The Future Fire also praised the novel.{{Cite web|title=Review of Grief|url=http://futurefire.net/archive/ookami.co.uk/cloven.html|url-status=live|access-date=2021-08-25|website=futurefire.net|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110720071943/http://futurefire.net/archive/ookami.co.uk/cloven.html |archive-date=2011-07-20 }} Grief was republished in 2020 as City of O.{{Cite web|url=http://mironline.org/reviewcityofo/|title = Review: City of O by C.M. Taylor – MIR Online}}

The novella Light is set in the e-commerce boom of the late 1990s and features the author's own Primitivist drawings. In Time Out London the novelist Nicholas Royle described Light as "delightfully unusual."

Published by Corsair, an imprint of Constable & Robinson,{{Cite web|url=https://www.thebookseller.com/news/premiership-psycho-corsair#|title = Premiership Psycho to Corsair |magazine= The Bookseller|first=Philip|last=Jones|date=18 February 2010}} Taylor's Premiership Psycho is a dark satire on the excesses of celebrity and football culture. Simon Redfern of The Independent praised the book, saying: "As with all good satire, this dystopian vision inspires laughter and loathing in equal measure."{{Cite news|date=2011-01-30|title=Premiership Psycho, by C M Taylor|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/premiership-psycho-c-m-taylor-2198406.html|access-date=2021-08-25|newspaper=The Independent}}

Reviewer Gary Andrews described the novel as "a slight reworking – part pastiche, part homage – of Ellis’ classic novel [American Psycho], only with the action relocation from Wall Street to the Premier League".{{Cite web|date=2012-03-25|title=Book review: Premiership Psycho « twofootedtackle.com|url=http://twofootedtackle.com/book-reviews/book-review-premiership-psycho/|access-date=2021-08-25|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120325005538/http://twofootedtackle.com/book-reviews/book-review-premiership-psycho/|archive-date=2012-03-25}}

FourFourTwo magazine called the book "American Psycho for the hundred grand a week generation...".{{Cite web|url=http://www.greeneheaton.co.uk/pages/authors/title.asp?AuthorID=160&TitleID=316|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20111227214123/http://www.greeneheaton.co.uk/pages/authors/title.asp?TitleID=316&AuthorID=160|url-status=dead|title=Literary agents for novelists, travel writers, scientists, biographers, historians, television presenters, children's writers and literary illustrators - C. M. Taylor - Premie...|archivedate=Dec 27, 2011|accessdate=Sep 2, 2021}}

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In December 2014, Taylor launched the "immersive narrative app" Reptile Resistance in collaboration with John Crump through the crowdfunding publisher Unbound; funding was secured in 2017.{{Cite book|url=https://unbound.com/books/reptile-resistance/|title=Reptile Resistance|access-date=Sep 2, 2021|via=unbound.com}} The app is illustrated by the artist Pete Fowler.

Taylor co-wrote (with Jeremy Sheldon) the screenplay of the 2015 film Writers Retreat.{{CN|date=April 2024}}

Taylor's novel Staying On was published by Duckworth in 2018[https://publishing.brookes.ac.uk/news/item/new_novel_published_by_oicp_lecturer_c._m._taylor/ New novel published by OICP lecturer C.M. Taylor]brookes.ac.uk {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210907104606/https://publishing.brookes.ac.uk/news/item/new_novel_published_by_oicp_lecturer_c._m._taylor/ |date=7 September 2021 }} and described as a "geriatric coming-of-age story".{{Cite web|url=https://www.duckworthbooks.co.uk/book/staying-on/|title = Staying on|publisher=Duckworth}} In 2014 he began a project with the British Library to document the creative process of writing the book. In a 2017 interview Taylor explained: "They have put what is effectively a piece of spyware on a laptop on which I’m writing a novel, and this spyware documents every key stroke I make, and documents the time it was made."{{Cite web |url=http://wtpcentral.thewoventalepress.net/2017/04/10/interview-cm-taylor/ |title=Writer Interview: CM Taylor | the Woven Tale Press |access-date=21 August 2018 |archive-date=21 August 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180821093956/http://wtpcentral.thewoventalepress.net/2017/04/10/interview-cm-taylor/ |url-status=dead }} The data from this collaboration was published in 2018.{{Cite web|url=https://www.thebookseller.com/futurebook/british-library-recorded-every-keystroke-it-took-write-novel-now-data-out-911471|title = The British Library recorded every keystroke it took to write this novel - now the data is out | the Bookseller}}

Taylor is senior lecturer in publishing at the Oxford International Centre for Publishing Studies.[https://publishing.brookes.ac.uk/staff/details/taylor/ Staff. Taylor]brookes.ac.uk {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210903170814/https://publishing.brookes.ac.uk/staff/details/taylor/ |date=3 September 2021 }}

• Light, as C. M. Taylor ({{ISBN|978-1-905315-00-0}}, ebook {{ISBN|978-1-905315-11-6}})
• Grief, as C. M. Taylor (first published under the name Ed Lark) ({{ISBN|978-1-905315-02-4}}, ebook {{ISBN|978-1-905315-10-9}})
• Cloven, as C. M. Taylor ({{ISBN|978-1-905315-04-8}}, ebook {{ISBN|978-1-905315-12-3}})
• Premiership Psycho, as C. M. Taylor (2011, {{ISBN|978-1-84901-594-3}})
• Group of Death, as C. M. Taylor (2012, ebook {{ISBN|978-1-47210-208-9}})
• Staying On, as C. M. Taylor (2018, {{ISBN|978-0-71565-337-1}})

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Category:1972 births

Category:21st-century English novelists

Category:English science fiction writers

Category:Living people

Category:Writers from Birmingham, West Midlands

Category:English male novelists

Category:21st-century English male writers

Category:English male non-fiction writers