Today we’d like to introduce you to Taylor Kane.
Hi Taylor, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
Where I’m at is slowly coming out of survival mode, while simultaneously having an insane level of creative output with my fiction writing. I wrote over a thousand pages from Feb 13 until the end of April. I’m averaging a novel of material every month and a half. My life hasn’t been easy. I was born with the spicy combo of autism and severe ADHD. I was a struggle from the day I was born, and with a family as successful as mine, reflecting poorly on my name wasn’t tolerated. I dealt with severe levels of shaming and some pretty horrific abuse – my one example is my mom making me shock myself with a cattle prod when I was seven or eight. My father, who wasn’t abusive, just neglectful, was a very famous radio star during the golden age of the medium. His name is Page Gilman, played the character of Henry Barbour on the 30-plus year run of One Man’s Family. My grandfather and namesake Don E Gilman was VP of NBC Radio’s Western Division, My brother David was deputy director of flight operations for NASA. I actually witnessed the first launch of the space shuttle from the VIP section at Cape Canaveral because of him. His son now also has a PhD in astrophysics. My dad also graduated from Stanford at 18 and my sister Maggie likewise was a Stanford grad, she got her Masters in Nursing. The point of all this is from the beginning, I was painfully aware of my family legacy and my supposed shortcomings for something I had no choice in. I went through twelve years of incredible shame, with no help coming ever. I was seriously suicidal at nine years old. Like I always say “that doesn’t happen in a vacuum.” But this is the thing, as much as my family tried to bury me, they didn’t succeed. Even though I was believed irrational for my belief that someday I would succeed as a fiction author, I’ve never stopped believing in myself. I remained ideating until I was 51, but by that time I had dedicated myself to healing my broken brain, and six years of therapy and the right medication has erased any self-destructive inclinations I used to have. I wouldn’t have survived the last year and half if I hadn’t gotten some things figured out.
I dropped out of high school at the end of my senior year and just kind of drifted through life. I worked in a bookstore for five years (absolutely amazing), worked as a barista, I managed the uber-popular Sweet Life in Eugene, Or (the cafe part). I have been a chimney sweep, a carpenter, a baker on three different occasions.
I climbed my first mountain in 1998, when I was 27. I was hooked. Over the next 27 years, I climbed hundreds of mountains and have successfully reached a significant summit over 300 times, double that if you count really high hills. I’ve completed climbs on some of the most iconic mountains in the US: Mt Shasta, The Grand Teton, Wheeler Peak in Nevada (twice, both times in winds that were gusting to at least 80 mpf), Mt Hood, Mt Adams, Mt St Helens, Mt Shuksan in the North Cascades, and many many others. I would’ve never thought I would have discovered a passion for mountaineering and rock climbing (I also worked as a rock climbing instructor at a community college in Oregon.) I have climbed more mountains than 99.999 percent of all humans who’ve ever lived.
I know it might seem like bragging, but for such a significant length of time in my life, I had very little to be proud of.
I did finally return to school in my late 30s and got my Associate’s degree in journalism. I then moved with my family to St George, worked as a news editor, a journalist, a sports and outdoor adventure writer for several local news organizations.
After working as a reporter (and not enjoying the toxic newsroom of the organization) I went back to school at Utah Tech University. Unfortunately, my depression roared its ugly head again and I was forced to drop out six months before I got my bachelor’s in digital film production.
However, despite everything I’ve said, I ended up doing some really interesting work in film. Of course, did lots of PA work but I also was an assistant location manager on the Sundance Catalog phot shoot, once in the Sundance Resort, the second time in Dallas. I worked on the Aquabats shoot when they were in St George, as a digital information technician (a job I’d never done before). I eventually got a big job as a location manager for a commercial shoot for the Polaris ATV company, and that job I’d also never done before, and had three days prep time to do it, and knocked it out of the park. One of my proudest accomplishments.
I also wandered my way into working in the local theater community. First I was an apprentice light designer, then a light operator, then became the projection designer and operator, basically building that section for St George Musical Theater. Unfortunately, I ended up needing surgery on my wrists, then my back went out and the chaos of my last year and a half began – more on that in a little bit,
I have also worked as a hiking/adventure guide a couple different times. The last time was for Red Mountain Resort in nearby Ivins, and that was one of my very favorite jobs. I spent 50+ days in Zion during that calendar year (starting in 2018 and ending after covid shut everything down in 20).
I’ve kind of just always been someone that if you ask me to take on a job, to figure it out on my own, I will do it, and do it well. I may not have had the same level of success my grandfather, father and siblings have, but they never had to deal with half the stuff I have, and I’m really proud of that.
As far as writing goes, I have always been pretty productive in spurts, but I was never able to get a handle on my ADHD enough to be able to do the necessary edits and rewrites needed to get published. But that’s all changed in the last three years and I feel really confident it’s a matter of if, not when I gain some traction. The only thing holding me back is my irrational fear of having attention on me. Obviously, I’m working on that.
This year I have written well over 2000 pages. I only started tracking my daily pages on Feb 13, but it’s incredibly motivating, especially when you see what you’re capable of.
So the big thing in my life happened on Nov 6, 2024. I didn’t find out until Nov. 13, but I received the news that my trans child Percy (Zoe) Gilman had passed away. They’d been struggling with schizoaffective disorder for several years, we were estranged because of their paranoia. I was obviously devastated. Completely numb for two weeks, didn’t cry at all, but then the dam burst and it’s been flooding ever since. I have cried more over the last year and a half than I had throughout the rest of my life combined – and I have always cried a lot. When they were younger, we were so close. When I was a climbing instructor, I’d bring my little “freckled monkey” along and put them on the rope first and she’d go third classing up technical rock like nobody’s business. We had so many adventures together, rock climbing, mountain climbing, kayaking, swimming, hiking, it was amazing. When they got to be around 11 they began to show signs of depression and ideation. When they were 13, in 2014, they had their first serious attempt. Kind of a miracle they didn’t succeed. I take an anti-depressant that knocks me out because I deal with sleep issues, and generally I never wake up after I take it. That night? I woke up. I knew something was wrong immediately. We had moved to St George in a thirty-foot RV and when I went to the front, Percy was missing from their bed, the window was wide open beside it and I went into panic mode. Eventually, probably 30 seconds to a minute from being too late, I found them. I won’t say how but they were dying. I got them safe and we called 911 and my life, all our lives, were changed forever. You never think your kid is going to do something like that. After, though, you can never forget. I wasn’t at all surprised when they successfully completed. I miss them with all my heart. Just a couple days ago I was sobbing for hours.
I didn’t write for about three weeks after they passed, but since then – actually since the end of 2018, I have written almost every day. I started taking this seriously and after getting my heart and head straightened out some in therapy, with the right combo of medications to turn my ADHD into a superpower. Now I average about fifteen pages per day, I’m able to edit repeatedly until my work shines.
The thing that’s holding me back is – me. Isn’t it always. I started writing when I was nine years old. My first horror story was a “sequel” to An American Werewolf in London, kind of hilarious now. I was actually in trouble that day with the teacher and was banned from the classroom so she read my story and I got an ovation from my classmates, which, for a badly struggling, suicidal adolescent, that was like angel’s singing. Changed everything for me. But, because I lived with some pretty awful narcissists and mentally ill people, I learned that any kind of attention was a bad thing, so I struggle with being seen. It holds me back. The first story I ever sent off was immediately accepted, but the company went out of business before I had a chance to even see it, which is wild. I’ve sent off a couple more with no success, but I’ve always known, when it takes off, it’s probably going to get me some attention, and to be quite frank, that scares the hell out of me, and I’m not afraid of anything. Dying? No sweat. Climbing a crumbling rock face ninety feet straight up on the 13th ascent of Smithsonian Butte? I got you. But gaining attention for most anything? Having people look at me? Absolute nightmare. Cold sweats. Shaking. It’s such a weird dynamic. I know I’m giving you way more than you probably asked for, but I’m a writer, this is what I do. Plus, I’ve got a crazy brain. I AM a Gilman, though Taylor Kane is my identity now. It’s taken me a long time to realize I’m worthy of their legacy, but I had to do it my way. I think the novel I’m working on now will do pretty well. I have like five hundred story ideas written down, I’m constantly outlining, writing rough drafts, revising, polishing, editing, making TikTok videos (with less consistency, but I just had one of my first semi-viral posts a couple days ago.)
I’m proud of who I am. I have some deep deep wounds, but I’m also so much stronger than I ever realized. There is nothing that can keep me down anymore except me. Hope this gives you something to work with.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
No. I have dealt with endless, punctuated spasms of extreme levels of neglect, shame, violence, abandonment, ideation, trauma, accidents and general chaos. But I’ve survived everything. I have had the most insane life. I talked about some of it in the previous page.
My mom was a latina woman who was shipped to the US from Mexico at 15 to marry a man in his 30s (not my dad). She had a lot of unresolved trauma, and took it out on us kids. I have so many memories of my mom having explosive rage, her throwing full cans of vegetables at my older sister (I was the youngest by 8 years) while they cowered at the end of the hall. For the crime of not cleaning their rooms. She forced me to shock myself with a cattle prod when I was 7 or 8. Made us her slaves so she could be a big-shot goat breeder (of all things.) It’s not spoken about a lot but being on a large ranch means endless trauma witnessing animals dying, animals being slaughtered, I once found a goat all torn up, killed by dogs or coyotes. I have seen things that no one, especially a child is meant to see. This is why I write horror. Helps me process the very real horror I have seen. I fell out of a car going 40 mph. I saw a plane crash right in front of me, high speed pursuits coming to a violent end, also right in front of me. When I first attempted to climb Mt Hood in 2001, I witnessed two climbers fall 900 feet, again, right in front of me (both lived, by the way) Two weeks later I was there to watch a kayaker making the second run over a 70 foot waterfall in Oregon, can you guess? Right in front of me. He wiped out epically, too. I found my child in the middle of actively taking their own life and saved them. I have watched the space shuttle launch, I have seen the space shuttle reenter the atmosphere above Oregon. I saw the launch of the Cosmic Background Explorer when I was 16, a private launch from Vandenberg AFB. It went on to measure the background radiation of the universe and prove the big bang happened. My brother was the head of that project. Yeah, I’ve seen some stuff, fam. There’s so much more.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I have been writing in the darkness for 45 years. I’ve always had the story ideas to make a serious career but my fears of being seen have held me back in some destructive ways. I write horror primarily, but I have also worked as a journalist, sports reporter and outdoor writer. My stories, even though they can be grim and tragic (as a reflection of my own life) I also (not always) tend to have at least a glimmer of hope or redemption in it. We all need a redemption arc. I know I do. I read voraciously. I think I’m up to 25 books for the year, mostly on writing. I devour everything I can get on becoming the best writer I can.
Here’s a excerpt from my story Upon His Throne, Beneath the City:
Upon His Throne, Beneath the City
Taylor Kane
Dec 30, 9972
She was out there, lost, somewhere in the city, beyond reach, but Hal could feel her still:
His hand on her skin, smooth and warm, the tangles of her auburn hair entwined in his fingers and the soft press of her lips against his; the slow rise and fall of her chest as she slept, the sacrament of her breath, steady and deep; the sweet scent of her body and the rich, earthy fragrance of her sweat, so familiar and comforting; He tasted the copper bite of her tongue, her flesh salty and sweet all at once; Her slender face manifested before him: high cheekbones, wide-set amber eyes, the bright spark of life shining with love.
He felt the pulsing of her heart as if it were his own.
Meredith was out there – somewhere – and he would find her.
I miss you. His heart burned in his chest. The details were fading. She was fading.
He pulled a pack of Weston Reds from the breast pocket of his dingy, unwashed dress shirt, fished a single cigarette from the box, lit a match and pulled a draw off the smoke until the cherry flared, glowing, the light from the match washing his face in a sulfur-tinted flare.
The yellow light revealed the weight he’d lost in the last two months, his face drawn, gaunt, hollow, cheeks sunken. His eyes were dark and wet, as if on the verge of perpetual tears. His mouth was a wide, grim slash across his sallow, sagging face. He looked as though he’d never smiled a day in his life. His coat and shirt hung loosely over his stooped frame, as if they were two sizes too big.
He had no appetite. He drank sweet black coffee and smoked two packs of Restons every day.
Each night he slept a couple fitful hours, the nightmares unrelenting and always the same:
Meredith alone in the dark, lost and afraid, somewhere in the void, an enveloping blackness stretching eternally in every direction.
Her screams were silent.
Mouth open, spinning around and around, bent at the waist and shrieking her raw-throated fear into the nothingness.
Looking for someone to help her.
Looking for him.
Her husband.
He couldn’t hear her, he couldn’t reach her, and always, the dream ended when she slipped away and she was swallowed by the dark and he was alone.
He’d bolt upright, awake, her name on his lips, hands reaching out to find her, his face soaked with tears, his bed soaked with fever and reality would come crashing in; a wave of raw loneliness and sorrow carried him off, and away from her – wherever she was.
He would wake, and feel the weight of her absence and every time, the same questions:
Where are you? What happened?
My goal is to be the best writer in the world. Impossible, I know, but why not try? It could be argued I’m needlessly holding myself back, and you would be right, but I feel like when I finally gain traction, it will be in a big way, mostly because I have an insane body of work, multiple books, multiple unfinished books, tons of novellas that will turn into books. Talking many thousands of pages of work. So I expect when it happens, it will be one book after another. Maybe I’m delusional, but I don’t think so. You have to believe in who you are and I’ve never lost that, even when my world was coming apart at the seems. My time is now.
Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers?
There is an art to survival. One part of it is embodying the warrior spirit as Joseph Campbell said it: say yea to everything. Don’t push it away, don’t deny the pain, the sorrow, you just have to wait it out, even if you feel you can’t survive it. You just break everything down into whatever unit of time you need to survive. When Percy died, I was shattered. But I never tried to push the pain away. I sat with it. I let myself mourn. I took it day by day, hell, hour by hour or minute by minute when I needed to. You can do really hard things. I thought I was weak. I found I’m not only *not* weak, I’m incredibly strong. But also, there’s no “getting over” really tragic losses. You never really turn the corner. I kept thinking I had and life would laugh and smack me down. It does get better, but sometimes its terrible again. I had a day a few days back where I encountered a woman who lost her son to suicide, and it set me off crying for three hours straight. But then I was OK again. And turn your pain into art, whatever it is. I could make ten movies out of the things I have experienced, and I’m actively transmuting my pain into stories that frighten, inspire and illuminate. You can too. Also also – let yourself suck at something. You are ALWAYS going to suck in the beginning. Keep going. There isn’t a single book out there that was sold as a rough draft. As Michael Crichton said: novels aren’t written, they’re re-written. I have embraced that and it has made my work infinitely better. That applies to all works of art. (also, I’m not really big on social media – too busy writing! – but this made me realize I need to utilize it better)
Contact Info:
- Website: https://patreon.com/u86526931
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/taylorkwriter/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/taylor.kane.147642
- Twitter: https://x.com/TaylorKWriter
- TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tkhorrormachine
