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.
A writer of short fiction and the occasional opinionated book review. Founder of the Marginalia Book Club. Reading, mostly.
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.
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.
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.
One ticket stub. One pressed leaf. One letter, unsent. One reason, forgotten. One pocket, still warm.
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.
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.)
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.
For inquiries, submissions, recommendations, or arguments about the Oxford comma.
hello@taylorbjennings.com