Writer, critic, reader

Taylor B.
Jennings.

A writer of short fiction and the occasional opinionated book review. Founder of the Marginalia Book Club. Reading, mostly.

Currently
Writing a novel in fragments
Reading
Demon Copperhead — Kingsolver
Based in
A small room with too many books
Portrait of Taylor B. Jennings
01

About.

I write because I cannot help it. I review because I cannot help that either.

Taylor B. Jennings is a writer of short fiction, a literary critic, and an English major with strong opinions about the structure of contemporary novels. Her work has been described as "quiet and exacting" — by her, mostly.

She runs the Marginalia Book Club, where eight or nine close readers argue over the second Sunday of every month. She is currently at work on a novel and a backlog of unwritten reviews.

02

Original fiction.

Short Story · Literary

The Cartographer's Daughter

She had inherited his maps but not his sense of direction, which is to say she knew exactly where she was and refused to admit it.

4,200 wordsRead →
Novella Excerpt

A House Made of Sundays

The clock on the mantel was always seven minutes fast, the way grief is always seven minutes ahead of you no matter how quickly you walk.

Excerpt · Ch. 1Read →
Flash Fiction

Inventory of a Borrowed Coat

One ticket stub. One pressed leaf. One letter, unsent. One reason, forgotten. One pocket, still warm.

740 wordsRead →
In Progress

The Quiet Hours

A novel about a woman who reads other people's diaries for a living and discovers, late in life, that hers has been read too.

ForthcomingSoon →
03

Reviews & criticism.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

Gabrielle Zevin
A novel about friendship that wisely refuses to be about romance, and is the better for it.
★★★★☆
Mar 2026

Trust

Hernan Diaz
Four versions of one story, each a small act of theft. We forgive narrators more than we should.
★★★★★
Feb 2026

The Bee Sting

Paul Murray
Long enough to live inside; brief enough that you mourn its ending. Murray writes families like weather.
★★★★★
Jan 2026

Birnam Wood

Eleanor Catton
A thriller that takes ideas seriously and people more seriously still. Ten moves ahead, every page.
★★★★☆
Dec 2025
04

The Marginalia Book Club.

Currently reading
June 2026 Selection

Demon Copperhead

by Barbara Kingsolver

An Appalachian Dickens, set in the long shadow of the opioid crisis. We're reading slowly — the way the book deserves — and arguing about whether voice alone can carry a novel this long. (It can.)

Next meeting
Sun, June 14
Discussion
Chapters 1–18

How we read.

One book a month. One long discussion. One ground rule: come prepared, or come anyway — but be honest about which.

We meet on the second Sunday of every month, alternating between an apartment with too many bookshelves and a coffee shop with not enough lamps.

Forthcoming selections
  • The Hours Jul
  • James Aug
  • Stoner Sep
  • The Idiot Oct
Request to join →
05

Get in touch.

For inquiries, submissions, recommendations, or arguments about the Oxford comma.