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Pride Month 2025: An Interview with Abigail F. Taylor

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What is your novel about?

Maryneal, 1962, is American Werewolf in London meets American Graffiti… With the full moon approaching and no salvation in sight, Delah is faced with an unconscionable decision: If she can’t find a cure, she’ll have to kill the boy next door. Despite its monsters and all things that go bump in the night, at its core, Maryneal is about grief and how concealing identities can devour us. Delah is learning how to navigate her sexuality with an unexpected crush developing on one of her girlfriends, and it hits her at the worst possible time: death and mayhem are wrecking her small town. She grapples with the guilt of how she knows she should be feeling and behaving in public, and how those clash with her budding desires. Meanwhile, her childhood friend and neighbor, Hardy, is afflicted with a curse of his own. Bitten by a were-coyote, he’s delighting in all of the ‘gifts’ that come with it, but ignores the toxicity of his behavior and how it changes the dynamics between himself and those around him.

 

What are you looking to express to readers with your work?

When I first set out writing this book, way back in 2017, I wanted to create a YA monster book that got rid of the sexy shifters. Let’s make the monsters what they are: terrifyingly unpredictable! The next thing I wanted to do was have a protagonist that represented girls in the 60s like my grandmother, because she never had a heroine she could look up to and identify with when she was a girl. So, I wanted to help change that. I wanted other, brawny and mixed-race girls to have someone who looked like them. I wanted to express a sense of inclusion in the mixed-up uncertainty of life, that it was okay to try on new identities and explore the type of person you wanted to be. I want my readers to know that it’s okay to not fit neatly into a box and that doesn’t make you any less of a hero.

 

Why choose horror?

I was at a weird place in my life, processing the murder of a friend, and I wanted to be able to safely explore the trauma of what it means to lose someone through such violence. Horror is a safety net for people. Yes, it can be terrifying and uncomfortable, but the beauty of it is that you can close the book. You can walk away from it. You can’t always do that in real life. I chose horror because every year, more and more teens are losing loved ones to gun violence, and my hope is that stories like Maryneal, 1962, can provide a safe place to navigate through all the emotions that come with an unnatural death.


Abigail F. Taylor is an award-winning Own Voices author from Texas. Her novella, The Night Begins, debuted with Luna Press Publishing in February 2023. She once spent a year working on the film set for The Dinosaur Experiment and had a stint in religious studies. A list of where to read her short stories can be found on her website: abigailftaylor.wordpress.com. When she’s not writing, Abigail spends her time out in nature, practicing aikido, and cross-stitching. She lives with four cats, two small dogs, and a sassy rooster.

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