Florida is more than a setting in Taylor Melia Elyse Mahone’s fiction. It’s wild, prehistoric, and supernatural. It’s a place where alligators are dinosaurs in the night, and the universe might just be carried on the back of one. Taylor draws on the landscape, mythology, and Gothic strangeness of her home state to build stories.
In this episode, Jared and Taylor talk about the intimate writing community she found in the McNeese State MFA, finding structure and accountability after graduation, the magic of visiting writer conferences, and her return to academia as a PhD student at Florida State University. Plus, Taylor shares why she believes MFA students should take every opportunity they can, get close to their cohort, and remember that, for this brief period of their lives, they’re there to write.
Taylor is a fiction writer from Central Florida and holds an MFA and an MA from McNeese State University. She writes about the sublime, the supernatural, Floridian landscapes, astrology, relationships, and reptiles. Fiction from her short story collection has appeared in Salamander Magazine, The Collidescope, Eckleburg Review, Eunoia Review, and Chrome Baby by Deep Sett Press. Her story, “Summerland”, which you can read in Salamander, was recently chosen as a winner of the 2026 PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers. Taylor is currently pursuing a PhD in Literature at Florida State University.
MFA Writers is hosted by Jared McCormack and produced by Jared McCormack, Hanamori Skoblow, and Brié Goumaz. New episodes are released every two weeks. You can find more MFA Writers at MFAwriters.com.
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