Graham Peter Taylor (born 1958 in Scarborough, North Yorkshire), pen-name G. P. Taylor, is the author of the best-selling[1][2] novels Shadowmancer, Wormwood and Tersias. Before taking up writing full-time, he was an Anglican vicar in the village of Cloughton, North Yorkshire.
His works reflect his faith, carrying Christian messages like The Chronicles of Narnia of C.S. Lewis. He began to write his works to counter the increasing number of works, such as Harry Potter and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, that he believed were encouraging children to investigate the occult.[3] His works have also garnered some controversy however, because whilst Taylor has claimed to be "an authority on Wicca and paganism", his books have been considered offensive by some neopagans for describing them as being tricked by the Devil.[4]
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Taylor grew up in Yorkshire, but moved to London in the 1970s where he worked in the music industry with such bands as The Stranglers, Sex Pistols, Elvis Costello and Adam and the Ants. He became involved in the occult, and lived a life that was, in his own words "into all sorts of weird and wonderful things and wasn’t leading a godly life".[5] It was then that he turned to Christianity, and he later became a vicar with the Church of England.
When Taylor completed the manuscript of his first book, Shadowmancer, he opted to self-publish. Following its launch at Taylor's local bookshop, The Whitby Bookshop, the title proved a great success and quickly garnered a publishing deal with Faber and Faber in the UK and G. P. Putnam's Sons in the United States[6] for a further six novels. At this time he resigned as parish priest and moved to a private home some 3 miles from his former parish. His books have since been translated into forty-eight languages and optioned for the movies.
His second novel, Wormwood, was nominated for the American book award known as The Quills. Tersias is his third novel and was published in the UK in 2005. In August 2006, Faber published a follow up to Shadowmancer entitled The Curse of Salamander Street.
In October 2006, Taylor's first ever 'illustronovella', The Tizzle Sisters & Erik was released by Markosia. A mixture of prose and graphic novel, Taylor was joined on the book by fellow collaborators Tony Lee, Dan Boultwood, and Harry Potter artist Cliff Wright.
He also contributed text to a book on the Yorkshire coast by photographer Mark Denton.
He announced his retirement in October 2009 in order to care for his daughter, who suffers from Crohn's disease.[7]
In November 2009, in a column written for the Yorkshire Post newspaper, he announced his dissatisfaction with the Church of England, noting that he might be better served spiritually in the Catholic Church.[8] Describing the thought of becoming a Catholic as "heart-breaking" and an act of deserting a "sinking ship", he accused the Anglican Church of sinking "into a liberal pit that was no earthly use and offered no hope, no love and no grace".[9] He added that the "church I once loved has, on the whole, become the spiritual arm of New Labour."[9] An editorial in the paper,[10] followed by others including the Guardian,[9] interpreted this as announcing that he had actually decided to convert. Taylor refuted this suggestion during an interview on the Sunday Breakfast show on Premier Christian Radio on 8 November 2009,[11] saying that the newspaper had got the wrong end of the stick.
Taylor has written a 3 book series on Mariah Mundi and his companions Captain Jack Charity and Sacha. Mariah becomes involved with the Bureau of Antiquities, an alleged secret part of the government that deals with all things supernatural. The first book in the series, Mariah Mundi and the Midas Box, involves a capturing plot on a box that has the power to turn things to gold, while the second, Mariah Mundi and the Ghost Diamonds, follows a sequel pattern about the mysterious Ghost Diamonds. The third, Mariah Mundi and the Ship of Fools, is different to the first because it makes few references to the previous but still contains the essential characters and motivating storyline with Mariah and Charity trapped aboard a doomed ship half way across the Atlantic Ocean with only a mad marquis, a dodgy inventor, and their odd families for company.
In 2008 Taylor signed a deal with film production company Entertainment Motion Pictures (E-Motion) to make a big budget film of the first in the series - 'Mariah Mundi and the Midas Box'. This film is currently in development.
Taylor has three children and currently resides in Scalby, North Yorkshire.