Short Peices

My short pieces for my portfolio are (1) an overview/ teaser for The Snowy Waste and (2) a biography each of which are a page or shorter.




THE SOWY WASTE

The thriving country of Exyel slips into civil war after their national treasure The Armlet of Exyel is broken apart. It’s only hope of ever finding peace again lays in the hands of the prophesized Quest Quartet. In the first decades after the outbreak of war people were hopeful that these Questers would arise. But after 30,000 years of bloody battles the Quest Quartet is nothing but a child’s tale. Yet this does not faze three motley friends from taking up the task. Jamie Stean of Vanton, Nealock Jordan of Flar and Billy Bones set out from the small vineyard town of Flar to seek the only thing that will save their dying country. Although each has their own motive Billy’s is the purist because he, Sir Tantin Exyel, will remain in the form of a skeleton until his country once again resides in peace. So he joins up in hopes of bringing Exyel back to the magnificence it knew when he was king. The three leave in hopes that the tale of The Quest Quartet will be like the ones told by bards where they fought valiantly and conquered evil with no effort. What they never expected was for them to get swept up into a power struggle between Darkness and Queen Zayden'Ash of the Dragons. They did not foresee one them leaving to accomplish good for the quest and giving her life for it. Zayden'Ash is the savior of the motley group but also the puppeteer of it. She has the power to make the search for The Armlet an easy task yet she with holds her power in hopes of making The Quest Quartet a story to be told for an eternity. When the Quest Quartet threatens to fall to pieces will someone step up and push them toward finding the second piece? Or will they all fall to Darkness?



Biography

Taylor Vangclear grew up in the hills of New Jersey with her family. As a dyslexic child she never wrote much. But one summer her older brother decided that he was going to write a book; she decided that she also wanted to write. It was the summer before eight grade that Taylor started to plan out and write her series. It was also that summer that Taylor decided she would be a published author before she graduated high school. All through high school she wrote. Many of her publications were in class anthologies and some stories in Voorhees High School Images Magazine. But it wasn’t till her senior year that she realized she did not have anything published that was noteworthy so she assumed she would not be published before graduation. It was the middle of September that Taylor started working every spare minute on a new novel project that was published June 2009 ten days before she graduated high school.

Taylor is now working on The Cycle of Tomorrows which consists of three series, two quartets and a trilogy, and three individual novels. She is also part of the Long Beach Island Writers Grope that meets twice a month. She is an active member during the summer attending meetings and she has given a presentation on getting published and what you need to do. During the school year Taylor gives workshops at her old middle school and high school. This May she will have her first book signing ad reading that she arranged on her own and independent of her publisher. She has also arranged to speak at three libraries in Ocean County this summer.

When she is finishes editing The Snowy Waste which is the first book in The Quest Quartet Taylor is going to send it to Daw Books in hopes that they will approve it and publish it. When the first book in The Quest Quartet is accepted she will focus on completing the rest of the series in a timely manner so she can move on the complete the other series in The Cycle of Tomorrows and work on other novel projects.