Nancy Taylor Day

Author and Poet

2609 Choctaw Trail
Austin, Texas 78745

Phone / Answer Machine: 512-892-0127
E-mail: nancy@creativitymoms.com

Nancy has a Bachelor's in Journalism, did time as a periodical editor, and has been writing seriously since the early 80's. Her main interests include situational relationships in both short stories and novels.

"Chicken Dog," one of the Papalote Chronicles stories, won the annual American Kennel Gazette fiction contest for 1994.

"Hanging off the Edge" a short story about a woman in Africa, appeared in the 1994 July issue of Pinehurst Journal, a small California literary magazine. Inspired by Nancy's 1992 trip to South Africa.

Represa, a collection of short stories about prision life, won one of the two Austin Book Awards given in 1987. Loosely based on Nancy's exerience as the daughter of the doctor at Folsom prison, the book has been used in literary criticism and prison literature classes at the University of Texas at Austin.

Nancy occasionally teaches a Haiku class as part of the Austin Writers' League workshop series.

Novels

The BB series is written for early teens in the tradition of Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz: An ordinary person experiences a unique event and is temporarily thrust into a bizarre imaginary reality. But more like The Phanthom Tollbooth, these stories are intended to simultaneously amuse and also inform. They address "new-age" topics like dream interpretation, Astrology and the Tarot.

BB's Dream Quest: 1983-1987

• Early-Teen Adventure: BB is having strange dreams, which he learns to record in a dream book. Soon, he is in his own dreams, where he meets a Dream Shaman who helps him explore -- and find his runaway friend Gin. Each dream represents a distinct class of dream in which the mysteries of dream symbolism are explored.
• Read-a-Chapter: Chapter 1
• Market: Early-Teen / New Age. Can be enjoyed as an early-teen adventure, or as a gentle adult introduction to dream interpretation.
• Size: 61,000 words
• Status: DONE
• Rights: Available

BB and the Zodiacal Light

• Early-Teen Fantasy Adventure: BB is on spring break and falls into a earthquake crevasse, along with his friend Gin and his dog Fuzzy Buddy. While looking for Fuzzy Buddy, BB and Gin follow a pale light that leads them through twelve bizzarre Astrological settings. Throughout, BB and Gin meet eccentric people who each provide useful information on the Zodiac. Once home, BB and Gin meet Noah the Astrologer, who casts and explains their charts.
• Read-a-Chapter: Chapter 1
• Market: Early-Teen / New Age. Can be enjoyed as an early-teen adventure, or as a gentle adult introduction to Astrology.
• Size: 50,000 words
• Status: First Draft Complete
• Rights: Available

BB and the House of Cards

• Early-Teen Fantasy Adventure: Entering a shop called House of Cards, BB and his girlfriend Gin find themselves in a Tarot shop. Just for fun, the Tarot reader deals the cards and predicts a strange adventure -- BB as the Hermit, Gin the Empress. When their city bus takes a mysterious detour, BB and Gin find they must play the hands they were delt. And it is up to BB to guide Emperess Gin back to reality.
• Market: Early-Teen / New Age. Can be enjoyed as an early-teen adventure, or as a gentle adult introduction to The Tarot.
• Status: Outlined in Extensive Detail
• Rights: Available

The Great Bicycle Heist: 1996-1999

• Early-Teen Adventure: Becca Lemmon lives at Centerville Prison, where her father works. When her friend Tommy's bicycle is stolen by an escaping inmate, Becca and her friends decide to find it. But they end up finding a great deal more.
• Read-a-Chapter: Chapter 1
• Market: Early-Teen
• Size: 37,000 words
• Status: DONE
• Rights: Available

The Permanent Solution: 1992-1995

• Mystery Novel: Priscilla Rees Jones is a full-time haircutter and a part-time detective -- or is it the other way around? When someone burns down her shop, leaving a dead body behind, Rees must endure the suspcions of the police, insurance investigators, and the public, while she tracks down the killer and arsonist.
• Market: contemporary suspense / mystery
• Size:72,000 words
• Status: DONE (on hold)
• Rights: Available

Brush with Death

• Market: contemporary suspense / mystery
• Status: First Draft Complete (on hold)
• Rights: Available

Short Story Collections

Represa: 1985-1987

• Short Stories: In these stories, Represa (Spanish for restraint) represents a condition imposed on the characters by the omnipresent walls of a state prison. For everyone at Represa, inmate and freeman, the walls set up a state of mind: a mystique, a challenge, a reminder, and -- for some -- the essential definition of who they are.
• Read-a-Story: Hobbies
• Size: 30,000 words
• Market: Short Story Collection
• Status: DONE
• Rights: Available (First Publication now Out Of Print)

The Papalote Chronicles: 1993-1996

• Interconnected Short Stories: Narrated by six women -- Zeleika Andes, her daughter, two granddaughters, and two great granddaughters -- these 19 stories are rooted in the mixed-land soil of South Texas. Papalote, a farm community, suffers through drought and the coming of Wal-Mart. The Andes women face birth and death of children, loss of innocence during the Vietnam conflict, and difficult transitions including menopause and a political shift in their rural county.
• Read-a-Story: Relative Distance, Tomato Queen
• Size: 69,000 words
• Market: Short Story Collection
• Status: DONE
• Rights: Available

Short Stories

Something to Give Away

• Read-a-Story: Something to Give Away

Those Whom We Love

• Read-a-Story: Those Whom We Love

Poetry Collections

Coming with the Quiet: 1997 chapbook

• Read-a-Poem: The Appointment

I Live in a Circle: 1998 chapbook

• Read-a-Poem: The Testament

Also see Nancy at http://www.creativitymoms.com/