Contact

You can contact me using the form below or by emailing me at crystalclearjt@hotmail.co.uk or, alternatively, by writing to me c/o School of Arts, University of Leicester, LE1 7RH, UK.

About

Here is my extended writer’s biography:

Jonathan Taylor is a novelist, memoirist, short-story writer, poet, critic and lecturer. He is author of the novels Melissa (Salt, Autumn 2015), shortlisted for the East Midlands Book Award 2016 and longlisted for the Exeter Novel Prize, and Entertaining Strangers (Salt, 2012), which was shortlisted for the East Midlands Book Award 2013 and longlisted for Not the Booker Prize 2013, and the acclaimed memoir Take Me Home: Parkinson’s, My Father, Myself (Granta, 2007). In 2018, Take Me Home was named as one of the ‘Five Best Books on Neuroscience as a Career’ by neurologist Andrew Lees.

Jonathan is co-editor with Karen Stevens of the anthology High Spirits: A Round of Drinking Stories (Valley Press, 2018 and 2019), winner of the Saboteur Award 2019 for Best Anthology; and he is editor of the anthology Overheard: Stories to Read Aloud (Salt, 2012), winner of the Saboteur Award 2013 for Best Fiction Anthology. His poetry collections are Cassandra Complex, published by Shoestring Press in July 2018, and Musicolepsy, published by Shoestring Press in April 2013. Cassandra Complex was shortlisted for the Arnold Bennett Prize 2019. Jonathan’s collection of short stories, Kontakte and Other Stories, was published by Roman Books in July 2013, and was shortlisted for the Saboteur Award for Best Short Story Collection 2014, and longlisted for the Edge Hill Prize 2014 and Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award 2014. A second edition of Kontakte and Other Stories, with a new preface, was published by Roman Books in 2014. His second short story collection, Scablands and Other Stories, was published by Salt in Summer 2023. He is Series Editor of Stretto Fictions, for Roman Books. 

Jonathan is Associate Professor in Creative Writing at the University of Leicester, where he directs the MA in Creative Writing.  His academic books are Mastery and Slavery in Victorian Writing (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2003) and Science and Omniscience in Nineteenth-Century Literature (Sussex Academic, hardback edition 2007, paperback edition 2014); his new monograph, Laughter, Literature, Violence, 1840-1930, was published by Palgrave-Macmillan in 2019. With Andrew Dix, he is co-editor of collection of essays Figures of Heresy (Sussex Academic, 2005). In previous roles, he was Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at De Montfort University (2007-2014) and Lecturer in English at Loughborough University (2001-2007), where he was co-founder and director of both the M.A. in Creative Writing and Ph.D in Creative Writing programmes. See the Academic page for further details and links.

Jonathan is co-founder and editor of the popular review blog, Everybody’s Reviewing, run in conjunction with Everybody’s Reading Festival and the Centre for New Writing at the University of Leicester. He also runs the Creative Writing at Leicester blog. 

Jonathan’s stories, poems, non-fiction and reviews have appeared in magazines, anthologies, websites and newspapers including the Times Literary Supplement, The Morning Star, The Independent, The Times, Times Higher, Guardian Family, Guardian Education, Granta, London, Poetry Scotland, Acumen, Seventh Quarry, Stand, Staple, Rialto, Agenda, The Author, Litro  and many others. 

Jonathan’s prose, poetry, interviews and radio plays have featured on national and local radio stations across the U.K. and U.S., including BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 5, BBC Scotland, BBC Wales, Oneword, Resonance FM, and many others.

Jonathan has performed his work at events, venues and literary festivals his work across the U.K., Cyprus and the U.S.

Jonathan was born in 1973 and raised in Stoke-on-Trent, and now lives in Leicestershire with his wife, the poet Maria Taylor, their twin daughters, Miranda and Rosalind, and their cat Fifi. 

Jonathan is on twitter @crystalclearjt.

Here is a list of major publications:

BOOKS AUTHORED

Laughter, Literature, Violence, 1840-1930 [academic monograph], Palgrave-Macmillan, March 2019, ISBN 978-3-030-11412-1, 259pp. 

Cassandra Complex [poetry collection], Shoestring Press, July 2018, ISBN 978-1-912524-17-4.

Melissa [novel], Salt, Autumn 2015, ISBN 978-1784630355.

Entertaining Strangers [novel], Salt, November 2012, ISBN 978-1907773273.

Musicolepsy [poetry collection], Shoestring Press, April 2013, ISBN 978-1907356728.

Kontakte and Other Stories [short story collection], Roman Books, ISBN 978-9380905648, July 2013, 2nd edition ISBN 978-9380905709, July 2014.

Take Me Home: Parkinson’s, My Father, Myself [memoir], Granta, London, July 2007, 272 pages, ISBN 1862079552.

Science and Omniscience in Nineteenth-Century Literature [academic monograph], Sussex Academic Press, Eastbourne, hardback edition September 2007, 272 pages, ISBN 1845191250, or 978-1845191252, also paperback edition November 2014, 272 pages, ISBN 9781845196479.

Mastery and Slavery in Victorian Writing [academic monograph], Palgrave-Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2003, 229 pages, ISBN 0-333-99312-8 and 978-0333993125. Also published as e-book in 2010, ISBN 978-0230554733.

BOOKS EDITED

High Spirits: A Round of Drinking Stories [anthology], Valley Press, November 2018, ISBN 9781912436125, Hardback edition, November 2019, ISBN 9781912436323.

Overheard: Stories for Reading Aloud [anthology], Salt, November 2012. ISBN 978-1907773266.

Fizzle & Sizzle: An Anthology of New Writing by Young Writers in Leicestershire, co-edited with Maria Taylor, Crystal Clear Creators (CCC) Publishing, Loughborough, 2008, ISBN 0-9551800-2-3, 978-0-9551800-2-6.

Figures of Heresy: Radical Theology in English and American Writing, 1800-2000 [book of essays], co-edited with Dr. Andrew Dix, Sussex Academic Press, Brighton, 2006, 228 pages, ISBN 1-84519-026-2.