Mark Taylor

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Hello! I’m Mark Taylor, a fiction writer based in Manchester in the UK. My stories ‘Dan and the Dead Boy’ and ‘The Double’ have appeared in The Fiction Desk. My story ‘All Seasons Sweet’ was longlisted for the 2021 Alpine Fellowship Writing Prize.

Mark Taylor, a white man with greying ginger hair and blue eyes, peering over the top of a copy of Crime and Punishment, which he is holding upside-down.

At the moment, I’m experiment with writing a tiny story every day. I’m also interested in the ways literature and technology influence each other.

On this site you’ll find info about fiction I publish here and elsewhere, any thoughts I cobble together about the books I read, and very occasional other thoughts.

You can email me at hello@markiswrit.ing – put “bees” somewhere in the subject line so I’ll know it’s not spam. I like bees, and people rarely try to sell them to me.

Recent posts

/book-thoughts/wounding-ruthlessness

Wounding Ruthlessness Use of Weapons (Iain M. Banks)

There is a small, unimportant detail in Use of Weapons that caught me more than perhaps it ought to have. In hope of extracting a favour from a university, the Culture tracks down a set of wax tablets on which the legendary lost works of a great poet are inscribed. They are held in the wall cavity of a monastery, and are almost completely intact, except for three or four that have been damaged by a fire lit by a passing shepherd.

Read more → 1000 words / 5 minutes
/blog/story-recipe

Story recipe

I found this at the end of an old exercise book I used for morning pages. Really in service of the bit I should add ten thousand words of preamble; please feel free to consider all my prior work as filling that role. I hope you find it useful. Read more → 500 words / 3 minutes
/stories/cavity

Cavity

A story about falling in love with your dentist. Read more → 1200 words / 6 minutes
/book-thoughts/don-quixote

Doing Good Is Always More Praiseworthy Than Doing Evil Don Quixote (Miguel de Cervantes, trans. Edith Grossman)

The most contemptible thing a person can be in modern England is Don Quixote. That doesn’t deliver value to shareholders. That doesn’t win back the Red Wall. Righting wrongs and giving aid to orphans? That kind of thing would have us feeding the hungry; housing the homeless; opposing genocide. We simply can’t build windmills to save the planet, when there are so many sensible people ready to take up arms against them. To imagine that the world could be different is an affront to British values. The trouble is that there are giants everywhere. Read more → 600 words / 3 minutes
/book-thoughts/bear-season

Furrier Transform Bear Season (Gemma Fairclough)

‘What happened to Jade Hunter?’, asks the cover of Bear Season. It is perhaps bold to ask a question on the cover that the book does not intend to answer, but that boldness suits a story that has little interest in giving the reader what they expect or want. Read more → 700 words / 3 minutes

Daily stories

/stories/daily/2024-11-08

He could feel the wine seeping up his trousers, at his heel where the hem dragged on the floor. Not his wine, and not him who had spilled it, but he was sat in the puddle, so who would know that?

At the interval, he would fetch paper towels and mop it up. For now, he sat, and stared into the back of the head of thr man who had kicked his wine over and pretended not to notice. He felt the stain wick up his leg, and he didn’t hear a word.

93 words
/stories/daily/2024-11-07

The Great Blade of Constancy, the sword by which the foretold hero would defeat the coming darkness, resembles the kind of soft foam sword that a kid would have a tantrum over in a gift shop, or an adult would buy for their live-action role-play sessions and paint to look more badass. But the Great Blade of Constancy rejects decoration of all kinds. It will be unchangingly red and yellow until the prophecies are fulfilled. And the foretold hero will be one who can draw on the deepest well of courage, to look extremely silly as they strive to do what they know is right.

105 words
/stories/daily/2024-11-06

Nothing remains of all my useless things but charcoal. Charcoal, to cook, to filter water, to draw, to write. To start again.

22 words
/stories/daily/2024-11-05

Eight paces down the aisle of the shoe shop. Eight paces back. All the time worried that someone will think his shoes are for sale, and there will be a misunderstanding, a scene, as though anyone would want to buy them. Sixteen paces not really sure what he is supposed to be looking for, not really sure what his feet feel like the rest of the time, not really sure if this is how he normally walks. Does his heel hit the ground first, or his toes? Has he tied them too loose, to avoid creasing a pair he doesn’t want to buy? He paces again, then flexes his feet with a thoughtful expression, one that shows the empty shop that he knows what he is doing. And then, because he cannot think of an answer when he imagines the shop assistant asking what is wrong about them, he buys the shoes.

152 words
/stories/daily/2024-11-04

Behold, the incredible Time Shoes! Step forwards, to move to the future! Step backwards, to move to the past! Step sideways, if you need to move around but you want to continue your normal trajectory through time! Strap them on and try! Yes, that’s it! Wait! No! Do not dance in the Time Sh—

54 words
More daily stories →