from #44 - Summer 2014
Bruce Taylor
“I started writing because I was a reader and those two things, and ‘running my mouth,’ as my father used to call it, were the only things I seemed to do well. Then I did it to try and get girls, successful only in that I had been so un- previously. Then to get attention, mostly from teachers. Then, at the tiny college I attended, to fit in with the even tinier artsy-fartsy crowd (and to get girls). Then to get into grad school, then to stay there. Then to get a job, then to keep it. A man, as the Bible says, may not ‘add a cubit to his stature,’ but you can always add a line to your Vita sheet. All along I thought my life made me write, of course it was the other way around. I have always been astounded, and amused, when people, over the last 50 years, say they admire my discipline, my persistence as a writer, in the face of an often massive indifference. Full disclosure, give me a little time and quiet and it’s one of the three things, well, four, if you count eating and drinking separately, that I love to do.”