Stories By Taylor García

Functional
Families

Desiree’s bedroom is hot and glowing, with the setting sun spilling into the open blinds. All around, lit colored candles flicker: a red one on the dresser, blue ones in jars with the Virgin Mary on the nightstands, a white one with Jesus showing a burning heart on his chest by Mary Jane’s changing table, and small yellow ones in saucers everywhere else …”

from the story, “Agony In The Garden”

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What Readers Are Saying

Taylor Garcia’s stories are tough and tender-hearted, brief and astonishing dramas that show us what we know to be true: that our families are designed to drive us crazy, but also to bring us deeper into ourselves.

I loved these stories.

The stories in Functional Families are sharp, surprising glimpses of those moments of life when the cracks start to show, when a border is crossed, when it’s clear things will never be the same. Taylor Garcia writes with great heart and humor and I gobbled up his wonderful collection.

Functional families is making waves...

"Nominated for the 2022
Maya Angelou Book Award"

The Functional Families Book got nominated for the Maya Angelou 2022 Award. Check here

About the Author

Taylor García is the author of the novel, Slip Soul (Touchpoint Press, 2021), and the short story collection, Functional Families (Unsolicited Press, 2021). In addition to his books, García has published several short stories and essays in numerous journals, and is a weekly columnist at the Good Men Project.

In a past life, García was a features and sports reporter at The Santa Fe New Mexican, and a political news correspondent at the Talk Radio News Service in Washington, D. C.He holds an MFA in Writing from Pacific University Oregon. García is a multi-generational Neomexicano originally from Santa Fé, New Mexico now living in Southern California with his family.

Taylor Garcia

Novelist | Short Story Writer | Columnist

aesthestic

High brow, low brow, mid brow, unibrow (mostly mid to uni)
Irony, both redemptive and humorous (don’t mind some dead irony now and again)
Humor (dark, sarcasm, satire, slapstick, dry)
Diversity (can’t be all white people…)
Spiritualism (dashes of religion)
Family issues (dysfunctional only!)
Latino, Hispanic, Mexican, Spanish, and Native American influences
Framed stories

LIT I LIKE

Literary, Pop, and mainstream
Short stories
Short novels (shnovels, or novellas)
Satire, Humor, Dark Humor
Magic Realism
Historical
Sci-Fi
Non-fiction: anything having to do with transformation and beating the odds
Anything by García Márquez, Saunders, Fitzgerald, Atwood, Vonnegut, Twain, Didion, Marie Howe, Dorianne Laux, Steve Almond, Pam Houston, Kellie Wells

LIT I WRITE

Literary and pop fiction writer fixated on short stories and novels
Itinerant journalist
Lifelong memoirist
Aspiring essayist
Pathetic poet

A NOVEL By Taylor García

SLIP SOUL

Tonight, I cannot sleep.

Around me, is a sea of men—some sitting up, others laying, talking, whispering, laughing, snoring—each of us floating on a cot, two feet apart from each other, enclosed by a chain-linked fence. My slow breathing won’t calm me, won’t trick me into sleep and off to the world of dreams where I might find Joanne…