Joshua Gaylord

Joshua Gaylord lives in New York. Since 2000, he has taught high school English at an Upper East Side prep school (a modern orthodox co-educational Yeshiva). He has also taught literature and cultural studies courses as an adjunct professor at the New School and NYU. Prior to coming to New York, he grew up in the heart of Orange County: Anaheim, home of Disneyland. He graduated from Berkeley with a degree in English and a minor in creative writing, where his instructors included Bharati Mukherjee, Leonard Michaels and Maxine Hong Kingston. In 2000, he received his Master’s and Ph.D. in English at New York University, specializing in twentieth-century American and British literature. In general, he tends to like people--particularly the ones who like him, though that's not a prerequisite.

Gaylord's forthcoming novel is When We Were Animals:

From the author's Q & A at Nerdy Kitten Pants:

Why did you write this book? Where did the inspiration come from?

My publisher would hate for me to call this a werewolf book, and it’s really not technically a werewolf book–but I have to confess that it’s my personal version of a werewolf book. And what’s most appealing about the werewolf mythology is the fantasy of giving over completely and unashamedly to the instinctual and animalistic. Especially for those of us who are overly self-conscious, deeply neurotic, shy, withdrawn, people-pleasing, and ritualized, there’s always that tinder of rebellion that wants to be free from all our self-imposed restrictions and habits. In large part, the book is about that freedom–about the savage indifference to other people and to the world at large: an indifference which we imagine, in our secret and most reserved thoughts, might be very liberating. I’ve always thought so, at least, ever since I was a timid, painfully polite, and socially straight-jacketed kid who daydreamed about saying GO...[read on]

Visit Joshua Gaylord's/ Alden Bell's website.

The Page 69 Test: Hummingbirds.

Writers Read: Alden Bell (August 2010).

The Page 69 Test: The Reapers Are the Angels.

My Book, the Movie: The Reapers Are the Angels.

--Marshal Zeringue