'The Insect Room'

. . . Prompted by the 'Bugs' theme in the current issue of 'Mslexia', I've posted my own recent bug short story on to my website - http://www.megantaylor.info/

Here's how it begins:

The Insect Room

I still dream of ‘The Insect Room’, of visiting the museum, with my father. It isn’t far away, despite the years. Sometimes it’s right there, waiting, when I close my eyes. A secret place, inside me.

Outside, it was always raining – at least, that’s how it seems when I look back. I remember a pewter rain-light at the window and a constant, muffled tapping. Wet footsteps squeaking on the parquet floor, and a damp smell drifting from the walls . . . Knowing that it was time, I’d slip my hand out of my father’s coat pocket. I would go wandering through ‘The Insect Room’ alone.

Please click here if you'd like to read on . . .

Mslexia Mention . . .

Hurray to writing magazine Mslexia for celebrating Flame Books in the ‘Independent Press’ feature of their current issue. Aside from releasing How We Were Lost, Flame also publish the very talented Shanta Everington and Anne Brooke, along with many other fabulous writers.

Here’s how Crista Ermiya from Mslexia described my debut novel:

‘How We Were Lost by Megan Taylor is written from the point of view of a teenage girl, 14-year-old Janie. This is a dark, compelling novel, with some superficial similarities to Jill Dawson’s Watch Me Disappear . . . The language is seductive and draws the reader into Janie’s complicated world, which features a pregnant older teenage sister, an absent mother and a neurotic aunt. As Janie’s life collides with the public drama being played out over the hunt for two missing girls, the reader is forced to reconsider the line between childhood and adulthood.’

I’m rather chuffed ( :