Published Works

The following pieces have been published in print and/or online literary journals:

“The neighborhood scuttlebutt was that Lenny was cooking meth, but the only dragon he was chasing was sleep. Sleep, that first and most intoxicating drug.”

“Dead Week” was published in Big Score Lit No. 1
https://bigscorelit.net/
“We are all works in progress, like oil paintings with the sketches of our former selves hidden underneath. In the right light, you can see all that you once were.”

“Miss Mittens” was published in The Brussels Review Spring 2025.
https://www.amazon.com/Brussels-Review-Spring-2025/dp/2390690408
https://shop.thebrusselsreview.com/products/tbr-spring-25-print-issue
“There is no love for the lanternfly. The profligate planthopper, the habitual hitchhiker, who arrived, unbidden, from across the tempest-tost sea.“

“Lanternfly” was published in Soliloquies Anthology Issue 25.1, Scrawl Place, and Best Small Fictions 2024.
https://issuu.com/soliloquiesanthology/docs/soliloquies4
https://scrawlplace.com/2023/12/14/lanternfly/
https://www.marylandliteraryreview.com/mlr-press/
https://altcurrentpress.com/2025/01/22/best-small-fictions-2024/
“All of these candidates share one thing in common. Their actions caused people to question The Chairman’s business plan.“

“The Chairman” appeared in Lamplit Underground Volume 10.
https://online.fliphtml5.com/dnitz/lnhr/#p=22
“He could drive these roads with his eyes closed. Sometimes he did.”

“Highwayman” appeared in JMWW on July 10, 2024. https://jmwwblog.wordpress.com/2024/07/10/fiction-highwayman-by-k-p-taylor/
“You don’t say no to John Wayne, especially when all six-foot-four of his bourbon-aged brawn shows up at your office after hours.”

“Eastern Western” appeared in The Barcelona Review Issue #109.
https://www.barcelonareview.com/109/e_kpt.html

“He had discovered apples (and how sorting them from pears seemed especially important to the Sapiens), swallows (a type of avian with a peculiar habit of flying great distances against prevailing winds), and trains (which came in pairs and traveled at different velocities in opposing directions).“

“Rhombus, Kite, Triangle” was published in Fission #3.
https://www.bsfa.co.uk/fission
https://www.amazon.com/Fission-Stories-British-Science-Association/dp/1910987190/ref=sr_1_3?qid=1701295146&refinements=p_27%3AEugen+Bacon&s=books&sr=1-3&text=Eugen+Bacon
“…the world is full of drowning people—the worst kind of people, because if you try to help them, all they do is pull you under with them.”

“Bricknose” appeared in Heavy Feather Review‘s Side A.
https://heavyfeatherreview.org/2023/09/20/bricknose/
“There, in a dimly lit corridor with benches on either side, we waited. We waited with people in wheelchairs, people with bandaged heads, people who moaned and shook and cried out.”

“Garden of Weeds” was published in Gargoyle 71 and Porridge Magazine.
https://gargoylepaycock.wordpress.com/71-2
https://porridgemagazine.com/2023/05/27/garden-of-weeds-k-p-taylor/
“Informal tributes were passed between us like a baton of reminiscence. Until it was handed to me.”

“In Which I Do Not Speak Ill of the Dead” appeared in Bright Flash Literary Review February 2023.
https://brightflash1000.com/2023/02/02/in-which-i-do-not-speak-ill-of-the-dead/

“The client was obviously geriatric. The ridges of his spine strung up the chalky, slack skin like tiny tent poles.”

“Last Chance Tattoo” appeared in Mystery Tribune Daily Fiction.
https://mysterytribune.com/last-chance-tattoo-modern-noir-short-fiction-by-k-p-taylor/
“I can hear the sound of Denny’s bong bubbling away like a fish tank as I start to drift off. The afterimages from the video game sprites track and ghost their way across my eyelids like comet tails. This is what happens when I speedrun for too many days.”

“Speedrun” appeared in Identity Theory January 5, 2023.
https://www.identitytheory.com/speedrun-taylor/
“Never underestimate the small and unassuming creatures. They are the pivot on which the entire world turns.“

“Red Lake” was published in Running Wild Anthology of Stories Volume 4, Book 2 and appeared on The NoSleep Podcast S18E13.
https://www.amazon.com/Running-Wild-Anthology-Stories-Book/dp/1947041746
https://www.thenosleeppodcast.com/episodes/s18/18×13
“Whether your final legacy is one of renown or notoriety, the celebrity funeral serves as the capstone on the monument that is your public image. It allows one final, brilliant outpouring of public interest and affection.“

“The Funeral of Fame” appeared in Maudlin House September 5, 2022.
https://maudlinhouse.net/the-funeral-of-fame/

“Cat Night­ was Lenny’s name for the first night you worked with a new hire. You’d act like a cat, stalking around with your back arched, giving the new cat the side-eye, hissing and spluttering, and all the while wondering which of you would fold first and scurry off to the litter box.”

“Goliath” appeared in Roanoke Review 2022.
https://www.roanokereview.org/prose2022/kp-taylor

“It was twilight in Holly Hills, and the streetlights had just come on, followed by a low, rhythmic humming. Disconcerting at first, the sound was gradually lost beneath the hush of the ceiling fan and the chatter of the nightly news broadcast. A man had been executed that morning–the first state-sanctioned execution for murder in the fourth degree.”

“The CONN” appeared on The River from The Sandy River Review.
https://sandyriverreview.com/2022/04/22/the-conn/

“Chuck turns to Erica. She has no head. From the neck up she is a scribble, a storm cloud, a swarm of bees. Chuck reaches for his Berretta, but it is not there.“

“Sleep Tape” was published in Dark Moon Digest Issue #40.
https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Moon-Digest-Issue-40/dp/1943720509/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=dark+moon+digest+40&qid=1682431958&sr=8-1
“It was the end of the world, and everyone was invited. Mother Earth, the battered woman, had returned to us time and time again, and we always promised that we would do better. But now she’d had enough–we were being removed, expunged…sloughed off like so much dead skin.”

“The War at Sea” appeared in Kōan (The Paragon Press), Lotus-eater Issue 10, and fresh.ink.
https://lotuseatermagazine.files.wordpress.com/2021/03/lotus_eater_issue_10.pdf
“But the red hat is a magical thing; it straightens the hunched back, stills the tremor-stricken hands, and raises the drooping head. More than this, it promises a return.” 

“The Red Hats” was published in In Parentheses Issue 2, Volume 6.
https://inparentheses.art/2020/07/23/the-red-hats-by-k-p-taylor/
https://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/1854512?__r=247632
“He felt himself slipping into the clutches of a deep and irresistible sleep. As he descended into the foggy depths of his subconscious, he became vaguely aware that he and Fudd were not alone in the room.”

“LUCID” appeared in Ginosko #24.
https://ginoskoliteraryjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/ginosko24.pdf
“Luke hoped that there would be a fire–a great churning storm of flame, the kind that would singe your eyelashes from fifty feet. Something wild and unnatural that would devour the store from the inside out and leave nothing but a blackened, smoldering skeleton.”

“Filling the Void” appeared in The Write Launch Issue 17.
https://thewritelaunch.com/issues/issue-seventeen/2018/08/filling-the-void/
“From deep within my mind a thought surfaced. The thought was death. It was like a huge obelisk of black glass that had risen out of me. The thought radiated with a cold heat.”

“Every Thought Flies” was published in The Blue Nib Issue 41.
https://www.amazon.com/Blue-Nib-Literary-Magazine-interviews/dp/1916154573
“We all have our assigned roles, Malcolm thought to himself. Today I am playing the gentleman caller, not the cheating husband.”

“Malcom at Midlife” was published in Adelaide Year V number 40.
https://adelaidebooks.org/adelaide-literary-magazine-no40-year-v-september-2020