Taylor, Robert Love 1941- (Robert Taylor, Robert Love Taylor, Jr.)

PERSONAL:

Born October 19, 1941, in Oklahoma City, OK; son of Robert (in sales) and Merle (a homemaker) Taylor; married Sue Patterson (a quilter), September 9, 1962; children: Jennifer Wendy, Julia Maria. Education: Attended San Francisco State College (now San Francisco State University), 1961-64; University of Oklahoma, B.A., 1966; Ohio University, M.A., 1970, Ph.D., 1972. Politics: "Democratic."

ADDRESSES:

Home—Independence, VA. Agent—Marian Young, Young Agency, 29 Grace Ct., Brooklyn, NY 11201. E-mail—rtaylor@bucknell.edu.

CAREER:

High school English teacher in Milwaukee, WI, 1966, and Willows, CA, 1967-69; Ohio University, Athens, OH, instructor in English, 1969-72; Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA, assistant professor, 1972-79, associate professor, 1979-85, professor of English, 1985-2005, professor emeritus, 2005—, department chair, 1988-92, presidential professor, 1993-96. Pennsylvania Governor's School for the Arts, instructor, 1979-81; University of Tennessee, visiting professor, 1987-88; Annual Bucknell Poetry Festival, cofounder and codirector, 1977-2000. Back up and Push (old-time band), fiddler, joined Buck Mountain Band; gives readings at colleges and universities.

MEMBER:

Authors Guild, Associated Writing Programs.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Four-time fellow of Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, 1983, 1985, 1990, 1992; Oklahoma Book Award for fiction, for The Lost Sister; Lindback Award for distinguished teaching, Bucknell University, 1999.

WRITINGS:

FICTION

Loving Belle Starr (novella and short stories), Algonquin Books (Chapel Hill, NC), 1984.

Fiddle and Bow (novel), Algonquin Books (Chapel Hill, NC), 1985.

The Lost Sister (novel), Algonquin Books (Chapel Hill, NC), 1987.

Lady of Spain (novella and linked short stories), Algonquin Books (Chapel Hill, NC), 1992.

Blind Singer Joe's Blues (novel), Southern Methodist University Press (Dallas, TX), 2006.

Work represented in anthologies, including Best American Short Stories, O. Henry Prize Stories, and New Stories from the South. Contributor of more than seventy short stories to magazines, including Georgia Review, Shenandoah, Prairie Schooner, Ontario Review, Iowa Review, Ascent, Columbia, New Letters, Transatlantic Review, Quarterly West, Texas Review, Hudson Review, Western Humanities Review, Missouri Review, Southwest Review, Ohio Review, Agni Review, North American Review, California Quarterly, Northwest Review, Southern Review, and the Cimarron Review. Cofounder and coeditor, West Branch: Twice-Yearly Magazine of Poetry and Fiction, 1977-2000.

SIDELIGHTS:

Robert Love Taylor is an American English instructor who initially taught English courses at the high school level and continued at the university level up through his professor emeritus status at Bucknell University. On his academic pursuits, Taylor once told CA: "I work largely with historical materials—matters of fact, legend, folklore, memory, and family. I am interested in the ways in which events give rise to feelings and feelings to events; in the ways we live and why."

In his 1992 novella, Lady of Spain, Taylor reveals a tale of boyhood through Bill Haynes' character, a middle-class Oklahoman of the 1950s. A contributor to Publishers Weekly applauded his characterizations, noting that "Taylor captures his quintessentially adolescent attitudes in suitably grandiose yet playful prose." A 2006 novel, Blind Singer Joe's Blues, also uses characterization as its hook. Set in the historic city of Bristol, a country music mecca of the time, music plays an accompanying role to Hannah Ruth Bayless' life as she struggles to make a living with her two children, one blind and the other the product of a rape by her boss' son, being raised by other people. Michael Scott Cain, reviewing the book in Rambles.net, commented that "Taylor skillfully moves each character toward the epiphanies and the fates that await them." Cain concluded his review, stating: "Blind Singer Joe's Blues is the real thing. It's a book that goes deep and continues to send back reverberations."