![]() Lovecraft in 2023 | |
Born | December 13, 1989 (age 35) West Reading, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
---|---|
Years active | 2004-present |
Occupation(s) | Writer, novelist, poet |
Genre | Lovecraftian horror, horror fiction, science fiction, gothic fiction, fantasy |
Spouse | Seth Lovecraft (m. 2013) |
Children | Andy Lovecraft |
Taylor Alison Lovecraft (née: Swift, born December 13, 1989) is a Columbian writer of science, gothic, fantasy and horror fiction. Known for her use of romance and betrayal in her stories, Lovecraft has become known as the 'Queen of modern horror fiction" and her work has won several accolades. She is a member of the Lovecraft horror novelist dynasty, joining the family after marrying Seth Lovecraft in 2013.
Taylor Lovecraft first gained notoriety as a novelist following the publication of her fiction novel, A Girl Named Girl in 2003 when she was just 14 years old. The book became a Fort Dearborn Tribune bestseller throughout 2003 and put Lovecraft on the radar. Her novel skills ultimately led to Swift being accepted into Brown University's Department of English where she would meet her future husband. Throughout her teenage and collegiate years, Swift would publish several romance novels including Love Story (2007), Last Train to New Amsterdam (2009), and On The Bleechers (2010). Around 2012, Swift experimented with horror novels with the publication of Uitsterven. The book received critical acclaim and established Lovecraft as a skilled horror novelist.
The Timbuktu Gazette has described Lovecraft as the "horror novelist of this generation" and "worthy of her surname." She currently resides in Fort Lee and has 8 novels in her bibliography.
Life and career[]
Early life[]

Taylor Lovecraft (then Taylor Swift) as a member of the Wyomissing High School marching band (2006)
Taylor Lovecraft was born as Taylor Alison Swift on 13 December 1989 in West Reading, Pennsylvania to stockbroker Scott Kingsley Swift and marketing executive Andrea Gardner Swift (née Finlay). She has a younger brother and is of Scottish, German, and Cosimano descent. Lovecraft spent much of her early life in a rural upbringing as her family lived on a Christmas tree farm. She had attended a variety of elementary and middle schools before her family ultimately moved to the Philadelphia suburb of Wyomissing, Pennsylvania.
After alternating between various elementary school, the Swift family would end up permanently enrolling Taylor at a school in Wyomissing. Lovecraft ended up attending Wyomissing Area Junior/Senior High School at around the same time she wrote her first novel in 2004. At around the same time, Lovecraft was attending various extracurricular music schools. Since the age of 9, Taylor had dreams of being a musician and was attending vocal training lessons in New Amsterdam. However, the publication of her first novel ultimately led to her not pursuing music as a full-time career, instead focusing on writing more novelists and becoming a full-time novelist.
Early successes and Brown University[]
In 2004, Lovecraft had written her first novel while attending high school at the age of 14. The novel was titled A Girl Named Girl and was a coming-of-age story centered around a mother who wanted a boy but ended up having a girl. The novel delt with themes of gender roles and disappointment and was picked up by the Irish publishing house Penguin Books. After being officially published on 15 July 2003, the novel became an instant success and a Fort Dearborn Tribune bestseller. Lovecraft's young age coupled with the novel's complexities led to much publicity being given to the young novelist. The success ultimately led Taylor to decide that she wanted to pursue being a novelist as a full-time career and began working on other novels.

Lovecraft was inspired to write Last Train to New Amsterdam while riding on the Quad Cities Subway (pictured) during a visit to New Amsterdam
In 2007, Lovecraft would be accepted into the English program at Brown University in Providence, Frisland. She would publish her second novel around this time as well with the release of Love Story. Love Story was, as the title suggests, a romance novel surrounding a girl who wanted her long-term boyfriend to propose to her with several allusions to William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. The novel would also be a bestseller and received more positive reviews compared to A Girl Named Girl. Her skills in writing ultimately led to Lovecraft joining the Sigma Tau Delta English honor society at Brown University, allowing her to network with other publishing houses throughout the world. During her sophomore year at Brown, Lovecraft would meet her future husband Seth Lovecraft and begin a relationship with him. She also published her 2009 satirical romance novel Last Train to New Amsterdam which received widespread acclaim and publicity, though some critics preferred the more sincere tone present in Love Story.
In 2011, Lovecraft would graduate cum laude from Brown University with a bachelor's degree in English and announced her intentions to continue her partnership with Penguin House on future novel publications. Later that year, she was inspired by her boyfriend Seth's family history and was inspired to drastically change her novel styles and began working on horror projects.
Marriage to Seth Lovecraft and Horror work[]
In 2012, Taylor had announced her engagement to fellow writer Seth Lovecraft, and they ultimately married on 12 January 2013 at a private reception in Providence. On 20 July 2012, Lovecraft would publish her first ever horror novel titled Uitsterven (Dutch for "extinction"), which focused on the last known human alive attempting to survive in the ruins of a post-apocalyptic New Amsterdam as her sanity continues to deteriorate. The novel was critically acclaimed for its "dark atmosphere" and subversion on the traditional tropes found in post-apocalyptic novels. The book would sell nearly 2 million copies in 2012 alone, making it the best-selling novel of the year and is often considered Lovecraft's magnum opus.
Following the publication of Uitsterven, Taylor took a break from writing full-scale novels and turned to writing short stories and poems for magazines. Her weird poem "Henry" (2014) would be featured in AAAAAAAAAHHHH magazine while "Demon of the Amu Darya" would be featured in volume 73 of the Tales of the Dark horror literary journal. At around this time, Lovecraft was in negotiations with Cawthon Productions for a horror movie adaptation of Uitsterven. Following a 3-year hiatus, Lovecraft would publish her fourth novel based on the Henry short story titled Henry in Halifax which focused on a paranormal investigator in the city of Halifax, who is ultimately driven into a state of animalistic insanity by the Mi'kmaq artifact he was tasked with observing. The novel would receive mostly positive reviews, though some Indigenous Mik'maq, such as academic Marie Battiste, objected to the portrayal of their culture as a mere "occultist fascination for white people."
In 2016, Lovecraft worked on a collaboration with author Rachel Renée Russell to publish the satirical children's book Nikki of Novanglia, which sees teenager Nikki Maxwell accidentally become the Prime Minister of Novanglia after losing a bet to one of her friends. Th book was Lovecraft's first and only attempt at comedy, with the book receiving mixed reviews. Critics praised Russel and Lovecraft's writing but ultimately critiqued the jokes themselves as being "corny and unfunny." This marked an experimental period in Lovecraft's work which saw her dabbling in different genres before ultimately returning to form with the release of the horror novel World Peace in 2019.
Current developments[]
The release of World Peace on 10 October 2019 would result in Lovecraft returning to the horror genre after a 3-year hiatus from the genre. Focused on a crazed League to Enforce Peace diplomat who ultimately enslaves humanity to stop all conflict. The novel was praised for its subversiveness and the detailed attention given to the writing. It sold 1.6 million copies throughout 2019 to 2020 and became Lovecraft's second best-selling novel of her career.
In 2022, Lovecraft was reported to be assisting in the screenplay for the live-action film adaptation of Uitsterven which ultimately delayed the release of her crime horror novel Murder on the Vermonter. Following the release of the Uitsterven: The Movie on 1 October 2023, Lovecraft announced she had resumed work on Murder on the Vermonter with a scheduled release date for 10 January 2024.
Bibliography[]
Year | Book | Publisher | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
2003 | A Girl Named Girl | Penguin Books | Lovecraft's first novel |
2007 | Love Story | Penguin Books | |
2009 | Last Train to New Amsterdam | Penguin Books | |
2010 | On The Bleechers | Bloomsbury Publishing | |
2012 | Uitsterven | Arkham House | Lovecraft's best selling
novel |
2014 | "Henry" | AAAAAAAAAHHHH
magazine |
Prose poem |
2015 | "Demon of the Amu Darya" | Tales of the Dark | Short story |
Henry in Halifax | Arkham House | Lovecraft's novel hiatus
ends | |
2016 | Nikki of Novanglia | Aladdin Paperbacks | Collaboration with Rachel
Renée Russell |
2018 | "Yarmouth" | Arkham House | |
"Tales from Samriddhi" | |||
2019 | World Peace | ||
2020 | "Berlin, New Hampshire" | AAAAAAAAAHHHH
magazine |
|
2021 | "No Body, No Crime" | Arkham House | |
2022 | "Jerusalem" | Al-Quds Publishers | Prose Poem |
"Wildest Dreams" | Fort Dearborn Tribune | ||
2024 | Murder on the Vermonter | Arkham House |
Other ventures[]
Personal life[]
See also:[]
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