about the author

Taylor Peterson is the second-place winner in this year's short fiction contest for her story "Moonberries." Taylor is a lifelong Jacksonville resident; after completing her associate's degree at FCCJ, she will move on to the University of North Florida to major in theater. Her ultimate plans include teaching English and drama and becoming a published writer.

Though her first formal creative writing class was with Professor Matt Lany in the fall of 2007, Taylor has been writing for years: "Words are a passion of mine. I am constantly thinking of situations, phrases, possibilities for characters to go through. I write whenever I can." She is currently pouring her energy into painting and theater and has recently tried singing, acting, and costume and set design, but Taylor describes writing as her "first love" and says she will "never stop writing."

Taylor advises aspiring writers to "Write from your heart. It sounds cliché, but you'd be surprised how much better your writing can get if you just dig deep enough." As a young high school student, Taylor discovered the potential of writing as a personal outlet: "It was much easier for me to get through the day when I had a way to express myself. I began to pour my real life into my fictional one." Now, as a college student, she continues to produce fiction grounded in real experience. She explains, "it makes a story more believable if there's some kind of real element to it. Some of the personality traits of my characters were taken from real life, either from people I knew or people I saw on the street."

You can read another of Taylor Peterson's short stories, "Afflictions in Autumn," in this year's issue of Flamingo Writer.