New Writing By Bruce Taylor

  • Selections from
    The Tails of Alleymanderous and Other Odd Tales


    • 12:46 am

      . . . you get home, pooped from the New Year's celebration. But it wasn't the celebration that wore you out. It was being with your family, your grandmother, your father, sister and mother. You keep hoping each year it will be different but it never is. You remember the words of your therapist: "You always hope that it will change, don't you?" Somehow, this evening, you get it. You truly get it: it ain't ever gonna change. But you know, way down deep inside, something is gonna change. But what? Your mind swims at all the possible and alternate realities but out of all the possibilities: which one is the one you're going to finally wake up to?

      You sigh, go to bed, and in a few minutes, your Maine coon cat, Alleymanderous, hops upon the bed, crawls beneath the covers, flops against you and purrs and purrs and you begin to drift . . .

      . . . and then the fun begins . . .

      So begins the novella, The Tails of Alleymanderous -- a surrealistic nightmare that lasts eight hours and involves this person "you" and the dream incarnations of his cat, Alleymanderous, by turns tormentor but ultimately guru, taking you on a painful but necessary dreamride to the midnight of your soul.

      In addition to the novella The Tails of Alleymanderous, are thirty stories, some of which have been previously published in such magazines as Talebones, Magic Realism, Pulphouse, and many others.

    • Introduction by Mary Choo: Bruce Taylor - A Passion For His Art
    • The Tails of Alleymanderous: 12:46 am
    • The Tails of Alleymanderous: 12:56 am
    • The Tails of Alleymanderous: 1:17 am
    • The Tails of Alleymanderous: 1:41 am
    • Panther
    • Insult to Injury
  • Selections from
    The Mountains of the Night


    • Everyone has a journey they must take which, ultimately defines their lives. To take it and fully embrace the journey brings to one the riches of a life well lived. That is not easy--

      Using the metaphor of hiking, I explore my own Mountains of the Night, dealing with a chronic and potentially life-threatening illness, confronting the impact of a profoundly dysfunctional family-- it is like being on a trail through the rugged mountains of one's soul, through the cliffs of despair, the storms of doubt, the false summits of false hopes, yet always ascending, ascending, we must go on no matter what the trail of life brings us, no matter what the obstacles, we must go on. If we turn back, we would never come to know What Could Be, what our true strengths are-- we would never, in the end, know the true destination of our lives, which, if we do go on in spite of the hardships, inevitably brings us into the Realms of the Gods, Fates, our place in history and above all, coming to know Grace and our Nobility and what it means to be vitally and truly alive.

    • Introductory Words
    • Chapter One
    • Chapter Two
    • Chapter Three