Cory Taylor


Cory Taylor was an Australian writer.
Taylor was born in Southport, Queensland and lived in Fiji and Kenya as a child. She studied history at the Australian National University, and then worked as a freelance film and television writer, with her work including the 1988 two-part television film Alterations for the ABC. Her first books were the Rat Tales and Bandaged Bear series of children's books.
Diagnosed with melanoma in 2005, Taylor turned to writing fiction and her 2011 début novel, Me and Mr Booker, won the Commonwealth Book Prize for the Pacific Region in 2012. Her next book, My Beautiful Enemy, was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award.
As her health worsened, Taylor wrote her last book Dying: A Memoir, which was published just before her death from melanoma-related brain cancer on 5 July 2016. It was shortlisted for the 2017 Stella Prize and included in Barack Obama's list of best books in 2017.

Novels

Me and Mr Booker, Text Publishing, Melbourne, 2010,
  • * German: Mr. Booker und ich, List/Ullstein Verlag, Berlin, 2019, My Beautiful Enemy, Text Publishing, Melbourne, 2013,

Children's

Rat Tales, illustrated by Stephen Michael King, Scholastic Australia, Sydney, 1999, Vol. 1, Rat's Lucky Day and Rat Goes Fishing, ; Vol. 2, Rat and the Rude Cap and Rat and the Big Stink Bandaged Bear and the Broken Bones, co-authored with Peter Townsend, Scholastic Australia, Sydney, 2001, Bandaged Bear Saves His Breath, co-authored with Peter Townsend, Scholastic Australia, Sydney, 2001, Bandaged Bear and the Birthday Party, co-authored with Peter Townsend, Scholastic Australia, Sydney, 2002,

Short stories

  • "Wildlife", Best Australian Short stories 2010 edited by Cate Kennedy
  • "Continental Drift", Griffith Review 34
  • "Unsuitable", Bumf
  • "The White Experiment", Griffith Review 54

Poetry

  • "Monkey Business", Griffith Review 31

Essays

*

Autobiography

  • "Claiming the Dead", Griffith Review 48 Dying: A Memoir, Text Publishing, Melbourne, 2016,