Identity area
Type of entity
Authorized form of name
Taylor, James A.
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
History
James Andrew Fair Taylor (Jim Taylor) was born in 1936 at Indore, in Central India. His parents, Dr. William S. and Mary Taylor were missionaries for The United Church of Canada. The family moved to Canada in 1947, and Jim’s father became Principal of Union College in Vancouver in 1948. Jim spent his youth in Vancouver, attended UBC, and worked in television and radio broadcasting with CBC Vancouver. He and his wife, Joan, and two children moved to Prince Rupert in 1964, where he continued broadcast work. While there, he pursued writing courses through correspondence, and developed and taught courses for The Canadian Institute of Speech. In 1968, Taylor moved to Toronto, where he served as Managing Editor for <em>The United Church Observer</em> until 1981.
With Ralph Milton, he co-founded Wood Lake Books in 1980. The enterprise became Canada’s largest independent religious publishing house. Taylor was also founding editor of the clergy journal, PMC: Practice of Ministry in Canada. In the field of editing, he is known as the originator and teacher of the Eight-Step Editing system. Taylor has authored over 20 books and has written countless articles and newspaper columns for well-known publications. He has also led writing and communication workshops for the United Church’s lay training centres, and for many other religious and secular organizations.
In 1993, Taylor moved from Toronto to British Columbia’s Okanagan region. In recognition of his ministry of writing and publishing, United Theological College in Montreal (an affiliate of McGill University) granted him an honorary Doctor of Divinity in 1991.