Heather Taylor (born 9 September 1977 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada) is a Canadian poet, writer, performer & filmmaker, whose work has been produced throughout Europe, Asia, Australia & North America. She has been a host on Resonance FM & Sound Radio with guest slots on CBC, CKUA (Edmonton), CKUF (Victoria) & BBC London Radio. Her writing includes poetry, short stories, journalism (web and print), plays and films. Her collections include Horizon & Back (Tall Lighthouse, UK, 2005), Sick Day Afternoons (Treci Trg, Serbia, 2009) with an Arts Council England funded collection forthcoming in 2010 from Tall Lighthouse Books.
She studied music, acting and writing in western Canada. After working on over 30 film and theatre productions both onstage and off, Heather began performing her own solo work in Vancouver. Since arriving in the UK, she has been a featured performer at events/ venues including the Victoria & Albert Museum, Borders, Poetry Café, Book Slam, RADA, Camberwell Arts Festival, Harrow Festival, Runnymede International Literature Festival, and Glastonbury Festival. She has also performed at the Arnolfini Gallery (Bristol) and Guardian Newsroom as part of the Remember Ken Saro-Wiwa project and has been a member of Malika’s Poetry Kitchen since 2006.
From 2005-2007, Heather toured the 2-woman poetry and music show, Accents on Words with Aoife Mannix. It was launched at the Poetry Café in London in November 2005 and has since been performed at a number of venues, including The British Library with BBC Radio London, BAC with Apples and Snakes, The Aran Islands (Ireland) and India with the British Council for Mumbai Poetry Live. In December 2007, Heather Taylor took part in first Belgrade International Poetry festival "Beogradski Trg".
As a playwright, her work has been seen at the Tricycle, Soho Theatre, Greenwich, the Pleasance, & Theatre 503 in London as well as New Place in St. Albans, G12 in Glasgow as part of the NewWriting NewWorlds Festival and various venues in Canada. She graduated with an MA with Distinction in Creative Writing from City University in 2009 and her first feature film, The Last Thakur, premiered at the London Film Festival 2008. The short documentary, Wild West Dream, she produced and co-directed through Red on Black Productions was at the Atlantic Film Festival and the Edmonton International Film Festival in 2009. Heather is working toward turning the short into an hour long television documentary with Free @ Last TV.
Heather is actively working towards creating projects that combine creativity and technology and is the editor and filmmaker for PayPal’s social media and consumer advocacy site, Let’s Talk. In addition to PayPal related topics, she regularly produces video interviews with experts in finance, social media and web development, to help consumers use PayPal and the internet better. She also features merchants and individuals who use PayPal to find out how it works for them.
As an educator, Heather has worked in schools (primary and secondary), community groups, prisons and with businesses developing creativity through writing and performance. Her approach is to bring a hands-on and interactive format to her work which includes the morphing of different art forms in order to teach one area which could include technology drama, music, art, writing and social issues. Past projects include poetry and performance with the BlackFriars Settlement (girls aged 11- 16) and Women’s Library, performances and writing projects in London and South-East England primary and secondary schools, the Deptford Identity Project (Artefacts Edutainment) with refugees, lone parents and pensioners, pre-school aged puppetry as part of the Oxfam festival, and historical drama/ writing workshops at Hampton Court Palace for primary/ secondary level. Heather also has her TESOL Certification to teach children English as a second language.
