Authors > Jackson Taylor >
Author Revealed

Jackson Taylor
Tom Cocotos

Jackson Taylor

Jackson Taylor is the Associate Director of The New School's Graduate Writing Program, which he helped launch, and where he teaches. For more than fifteen years he has been the Director of The Prison Writing Program at PEN American Center. His short... Read full bio

Author Revealed:
Q. What is your motto or maxim?
A. Seek what is essential and exceptional--forget the rest.
Learn more about Jackson Taylor
Jackson Taylor Revealed
About Jackson Taylor
  • What is your birthdate?:
    4/1
  • Previous occupations:
    Waiter, Journalist, Handing Out Flyers on the Street, Working with Handicapped Adults, Selling Pajamas at Bloomingdales.
  • Favorite job:
    Teaching Creative Writing
  • High school and/or college:
    Columbia
  • Name of your favorite composer or music artist?:
    Harold Arlen
  • Favorite movie:
    The Night of The Iguana
  • Favorite television show:
    The Honeymooners
Revealing Questions
Q. How would you describe your life in only 8 words?
A. Up and down life's stairway like everyone else.
Q. What is your motto or maxim?
A. Seek what is essential and exceptional--forget the rest.
Q. How would you describe perfect happiness?
A. Discovering a truth.
Q. What’s your greatest fear?
A. Lying.
Q. If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would you choose to be?
A. Swimming in a warm azure sea.
Q. With whom in history do you most identify?
A. Job
Q. Which living person do you most admire?
A. Marie Ponsot
Q. What are your most overused words or phrases?
A. I'm not sure...
Q. What do you regret most?
A. That I never heard Ella Fitzgerald sing in person.
Q. If you could acquire any talent, what would it be?
A. Piano.
Q. What is your greatest achievement?
A. Moving to New York at 17.
Q. What’s your greatest flaw?
A. Anxiousness.
Q. What’s your best quality?
A. Sense of humor.
Q. If you could be any person or thing, who or what would it be?
A. A well tended garden.
Q. What trait is most noticeable about you?
A. A good-natured pensiveness.
Q. Who is your favorite fictional hero?
A. Big Daddy
Q. Who is your favorite fictional villain?
A. Mr. Potter
Q. If you could meet any historical character, who would it be and what would you say to him or her?
A. Abraham Lincoln Would you be willing to show me where all your anonymous verses are published.
Q. What is your biggest pet peeve?
A. Developers who put up large buildings that lack grace or context.
Q. What is your favorite occupation, when you’re not writing?
A. Architecture.
Q. What’s your fantasy profession?
A. Crooning.
Q. What 3 personal qualities are most important to you?
A. Humility, Humor, Practical Judgement.
Q. If you could eat only one thing for the rest of your days, what would it be?
A. pasta - and anything with wild black rasberries.
Q. What are your 5 favorite songs?
A. Bridge Over Troubled Water, Folsum Prison Blues, Something Wonderful, Opus One, Battle Hymn of the Republic.
On Books and Writing
Q. Who are your favorite authors?
A. Emily Dickinson, Joseph Conrad, George Eliot, John Steinbeck, Tennessee Williams, Yeats, Shakespeare, MFK Fisher, WS Merwin, Eugene O'Neal, William Blake, Susan Sontag, Joseph Mitchell, Paul Bowles, Jacqueline Susanne, James Baldwin, Flannery O'Connor, F. Scott Fitzgerald...
Q. What are your 5 favorite books of all time?
A. The Great Gatsby A Pattern Language Don Quixote U.S.A. The Dead
Q. Is there a book you love to reread?
A. Ulysses
Q. Do you have one sentence of advice for new writers?
A. Write what you want to read.
Q. What comment do you hear most often from your readers?
A. Your clearly illustrate complicated things.
Q. How did you come to write Blue Orchard?
A. The story was one of the great mysteries of our family--it was an opportunity to amend the record of how the past was considered.