Goldie

Taylor

Novelist & Nonfiction Writer

Political Analyst & Speaker

Travels from: Atlanta, GA

“Goldie Taylor has delivered the juice with Paper Gods.” – Jon Allen, bestselling author of HRC and Shattered

Goldie TaylorVeteran journalist and human rights activist Goldie Taylor is perhaps best known for her work as a cable news political analyst. A contributing editor at The Daily Beast, Goldie has been a featured political analyst on NBC News, MSNBC, CNN and HLN and has been a guest on programs such as HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, Dr. Phil, Steve Harvey Show, and Good Morning America. She appeared in “Light Skinned Girls,” a documentary released by the Oprah Winfrey Network and “Eyes on the Prize: Then and Now” on PBS.

Goldie has been a frequent guest on a full host of local and national radio shows, including NPR’s All Things Considered, and has been regularly published in print and digital publications. In recent years, she has written dozens of guest op-ed columns for Salon, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Creative Loafing, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, TheGrio, Huffington Post, CNN.com, MSNBC.com, Ebony and Essence among others.

A sought-after public speaker, she has addressed audiences at— among others— the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, Harvard University, Morehouse College, Emory School of Law, Spelman College, Princeton University, Duke School of Law, National Association of Black Journalists, University of Missouri School of Journalism, The King Center and Cambridge Speaker Series.

Previous works include: In My Father’s House (Wheatmark Press, 2005) and The January Girl (Warner Books, 2007/ Hachette Grand Central, 2008) and Paper Gods (St. Martin’s Press, 2108).

Today, Goldie is chief communications and marketing officer for Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. She lives with her family in Boston. The mother of three grown children and two grandchildren, she is wholly convinced—in her words– that “God has a sense of humor.”

Goldie's Featured Titles

The Love You Save

Hanover Square Press |

January 31, 2023

Memoir

A shattering yet deeply hopeful memoir of a young girl who, through a love of books and her own tenacity, creates hope where none existed

At age eleven, Goldie Taylor is out riding her new bike when a young man from the neighborhood brutally rapes her. Goldie’s mother, dealing with trauma of her own, sends her to live with her aunt, uprooting her from a good school to live in a dangerous, bottomed-out neighborhood in East St. Louis.

Aunt Gerald takes in anyone who asks, but the conditions are harsh. With no bed or personal belongings, Goldie sleeps on the living room floor, beneath a threadbare blanket, amid cousins who abuse her. Plagued by the echoes of trauma and longing for her mother, Goldie finds her thoughts growing increasingly dark. Until she finds solace in the writings of James Baldwin. And hope in the form of a nurturing teacher who helps her find her voice.

With echoes of Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and Tara Westover’s Educated, Goldie Taylor’s debut memoir shines a light on the strictures of race, class and gender in a post-Jim Crow America while offering a nuanced, empathetic portrait of a family in a pitched battle for its very soul. Profoundly moving, exquisitely rendered and ultimately uplifting, The Love You Save is a story about hidden strength, perseverance against unimaginable odds, the beauty and pain of girlhood, and the power of the written word.

BIPOC Representation, Civil Discourse & Social Justice, Memoir & Personal Journeys

Paper Gods

All Points Books |

October 23, 2018

Novel

The mayor of Atlanta and a washed-up reporter investigate a series of assassinations, and uncover a conspiracy that reaches into the heart of the city’s political machine.

Mayor Victoria Dobbs Overstreet is a Harvard-trained attorney and Spelman alum, married to a celebrated heart surgeon, mother to beautiful twin girls, and a political genius. When her mentor, ally, and friend Congressman Ezra Hawkins is gunned down in Ebenezer Baptist Church, Victoria finds a strange piece of origami–a “paper god”–tucked inside his Bible. These paper gods turn up again and again, always after someone is killed. Someone is terrorizing those who are close to Mayor Dobbs, and she can’t shake the feeling that the killer is close to her, too.

“A moving and unflinching portrait of a city and its many layers of power…Taylor has created a hero we see all too rarely: black, female, powerful.” —Tim Teeman, Senior Editor of The Daily Beast

“From buttermilk fried okra to bibles and bullets, the story comes out the gate moving and never lets up.” —Eric Jerome Dickey, New York Times bestselling author of A Wanted Woman

American South / Appalachia, Fiction

The January Girl

Grand Central Publishing |

April 7, 2008

Novel

In this powerful novel, a ten-year love affair is tested after Thandy finds out her lover is cheating on her not only with his wife, but with another woman as well.

Men couldn’t help but be drawn to her exquisite beauty and incomparable grace. But Thandy knew Dr. Jackson Gabrielle was different the minute they met. And indeed, Jack knew that this enchanting creature was meant for him, despite the fact that he was already married.

Thandy and Jack’s decade-long affair might have been continued indefinitely, the hard-working attorney and the high-profile surgeon scraping together moments for each other out of their crazed schedules, if Thandy hadn’t learned from Jack’s bitter wife that he had taken up with yet another woman. Thandy moves on, leaving Jack in Atlanta for a big job in Chicago. Jack, used to getting everything he has ever wanted with ease, is forced to figure out what it takes to hold on to something he loves. And Thandy, having fought her whole life for everything she has achieved, realizes the true measure of her strength. But fate intervenes and sets into motion a series of events leading to a shocking climax that forever changes everything.

American South / Appalachia, Fiction

The Art of Conscious Capitalism

How to build purpose-driven organization that transforms the enterprise, community and lives.

In Defense of Bullsh*t

How life’s most inane annoyances shape character, spur growth and sustain change.

Leading from the Middle

Advancing big ideas when you don’t have the title or the budget.

Writing to Right

How and why you should put your life on paper.

Confessions of a Reformed Cable Pundit

From daily television appearance to becoming a full-time writer. How I survived the transition.

Breakfast with Ghosts

Why “living” with my characters is the best way to get them to come alive on the page.

Goldie Taylor Shares Her Story Of How She Triumphed After A Childhood Of Abuse on The View

“Hope, comfort and confirmation to everyone who believes in the singular power of books.” —J.R. Moehringer, New York Times bestselling author of The Tender Bar

“Bursting with hope, wonder and wisdom, The Love You Save is a deeply inspiring, must-read memoir about the transformative power of books to heal and unite us.” —Gabrielle Union

“Indelible… This powerful examination of survival and self-forgiveness is an emotional reckoning.” —Publishers Weekly

“Deeply honest, it is an important cultural document wrapped in a memoir.” —Mikki Kendall, New York Times bestselling author

“Harrowing, transcendent and written with singular grace. A powerful book that will stick with you forever.” —Tamron Hall, author of As the Wicked Watch

“Goldie Taylor knows Atlanta, and she wants you to know it too. In Mayor Victoria Dobbs, Taylor has created a hero we see all too rarely: black, female, powerful, and determined to stay true to herself and her passionately beloved Atlanta, whatever the forces ranged against her. Every character is vivid, and every stretch of street and detail, no matter how incidental, precisely observed. This is ‘Scandal’ with added grit.” —Tim Teeman, Senior Editor of The Daily Beast

“Goldie Taylor’s brisk, lively storytelling takes us inside the seamy world of Atlanta politics, a place populated with corrupt local potentates, blackmailing power brokers, and small-time dirty tricksters, and into the caffeine-fueled world of political reporting, where high-minded idealism crumbles under brutal pressures to get the job done at any cost.” —Greg Sargent, author of the Washington Post’s Plum Line blog

“Goldie Taylor has delivered the juice with Paper Gods, a gripping political thriller featuring such vivid characters that it’s easy to forget they aren’t real.” —Jon Allen, bestselling author of HRC and Shattered

“Paper Gods takes us inside a world rarely seen—Atlanta politics. From buttermilk fried okra to bibles and bullets, the story comes out the gate moving and never lets up. Goldie Taylor is a remarkable writer at the top of her game.” —Eric Jerome Dickey, New York Times bestselling author of A Wanted Woman