Helen Taylor

Helen Taylor has published books on women's writing, American southern culture, and most recently women fiction readers. Her best-known works focus on popular writing and culture: Scarlett's Women: Gone With the Wind and its Female Fans, The Daphne du Maurier Companion, and Circling Dixie: Contemporary Southern Culture through a Transatlantic Lens. Her book, Why Women Read Fiction: The Stories of Our Lives, is the culmination of her lifetime interest in women's reading enthusiasms and practices. She has taught at the universities of Bristol, UWE, Warwick and Exeter, and chaired or curated many literary events. She directed the first children's literature festival in Exeter, and the inaugural Liverpool Literary Festival. Her new memoir/cultural study, Childless by Choice: The Meaning and Legacy of a Childfree Life, is published in June 2025.