James Taylor

James Taylor-- co-founder of Showhistory.com-- has been called “the world’s foremost authority on sideshow” c/o his Shocked and Amazed! On & Off the Midway, the world’s only periodical on contemporary and historical sideshow, novelty and variety exhibition. He has been covering “the other entertainment” for over two decades and has been featured in all major broadcast and print media worldwide for his work in that field. He is also the co-founder of Baltimore’s American Dime Museum and Washington, DC’s Palace of Wonders. And, as the sideshow spirit moves him, he writes for the Huffington Post. He is also renowned for his performance of “the act,” a sideshow exhibition too daring for a man his age to perform. James Taylor is the co-founder of Dolphin-Moon Press, one of Baltimore’s oldest literary publishing houses. A graduate of Johns Hopkins University’s Writing Seminars, he has been at the forefront of Baltimore’s literary scene since the early 1970s, organizing literary events and chairing the Mayor’s Advisory Council’s Literary Panel for Artscape, the country’s largest free outdoor art’s festival. For nearly a decade, he served on the Governor’s panel to select Maryland’s Poet Laureate. His journal, James Taylor’s Shocked and Amazed! On & Off the Midway, is the world’s only publication devoted to the history and current status of sideshow, novelty and variety exhibition. He has been covering “the other entertainment” for over two decades and has been featured in assorted media worldwide for his work in that field. He is also the co-founder of Baltimore’s American Dime Museum and Washington, DC’s Palace of Wonders. And, as the sideshow spirit moves him, he writes for the Huffington Post. James Taylor is a graduate of the University of Maryland and the Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars and co-founded Dolphin-Moon Press in 1973, making it one of Baltimore’s oldest small press publishing houses. For nearly a decade, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Taylor was literary chairman to the Baltimore Mayor’s Advisory Committee on Art and Culture and was a member of the Maryland governor’s panel choosing the state’s poet laureate. In 1999 he co-founded with Dick Horne the American Dime Museum in Baltimore, a museum that was part Victorian recreation and part homage to circus, carnival and dime museum culture; Taylor dissolved his partnership with Horne in 2003. Almost immediately, he began work on reestablishing his own museum attractions in Washington, DC, in the Palace of Wonders, which opened in 2006. He has given countless readings of his work both here and abroad and has been featured internationally on numerous occasions on TV, radio and in print in connection with his own writing, his museums and Dolphin-Moon Press. He has also served as historical consultant to numerous television productions in his capacity as variety arts historian. He has three books of poetry and fiction to date: Tigerwolves, Tricks of Vision, and Artifacture (featuring illustrations by half a dozen artists). His Shocked and Amazed! - On & Off the Midway, published through Dolphin-Moon since 1995, is the world’s only journal devoted to novelty and variety exhibition and life in the sideshow; in 2002, Lyons/Globe Pequot Press published a “Best Of” Shocked and Amazed! In his private life, he has worked for the state government of Maryland since 1975, and for 25 years, beginning in 1984, he was an Associate Professor of English at the Dundalk Campus of the Community College of Baltimore County.