Taylor honored with Press Club awards for stories in Village News

FALLBROOK — Nathalie Taylor, features editor for the Fallbrook/Bonsall Village News, won three San Diego Press Club awards at the 35th anniversary banquet held at the Hall of Champions in Balboa Park on October 21.

Taylor placed first in the Travel category with “Red Cottages, Sailing Ships and Vikings: A Journey to Sweden’s Past” (August 16, 2007). The story highlights Gastrikland, a province north of Stockholm. Since this is the land of her heritage, Taylor penned the story with insight, humor and passion.

Humor was also used to highlight Taylor’s experiences at a recreated Viking village where she and a cousin, Birgitta, weren’t exactly successful with the bow and arrow but where her cousin Håkan proved to be a marksman.

Taylor wrote, “I told Birgitta that if we were Vikings she and I would be picking berries and making bread while Håkan would shoot moose and save us from becoming vegetarians.”

Taylor also chronicled a sail aboard the two-masted “Briggen Gerda” with fervor: “I chose the bow as an anchor point for my journey where the Baltic winds scented my hair, which was wildly flipping around as Gerda’s bow sank and rose in the waves.”

When describing a 200-year-old ancestral home, Taylor wrote, “The farmhouse is host to antiques, which are remnants of the lives of our ancestors.”

Taylor was presented a second place award in the Review category. She reviewed a feature film shown at the Fallbrook Film Festival.

“‘Yesterday Was a Lie’ mysterious, savory” (May 15, 2008) is an intellectual film in the noir genre.

Taylor wrote, “‘Yesterday Was a Lie’ is akin to the impact of poetry on the human soul. There is a pervading theme or truth to be discovered, but each viewer brings with them an individual interpretation. It is a film to be savored… swirled around the palate like a fragrant glass of wine.”

In the Architecture and Design category Taylor took third place honors with her story “A blue door, a glass of wine and thou: the story of the Jacksons’ wine cave,” (February 28, 2008).

In an expert manner, Taylor described Bill and Colleen Jackson’s journey to build a wine cave at their Fallbrook home.

She wrote, “The cave now exudes character from every corner… the painters did their job so adeptly that when I viewed the faux aged walls and inhaled the cool wine-scented air I was transported in my mind to some ancient Tuscan wine cave.”

Now features editor, Taylor has been working as a writer and photographer for the Fallbrook Village News and the Fallbrook Sourcebook since January of 2003. In 2005 she served as Fallbrook Sourcebook editor. For three years she wrote a restaurant review column, “Dining Out,” and currently writes the “Out & About” column.

In five years of competition Taylor has won 16 awards from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists for her writing and photography.

In 2006 she took first place in the Erle Stanley Gardner Mystery Writing Contest with her short story, “Erica’s Discovery.” She is also an award-winning poet.

Prior to her work at the Village News she served in the field of public relations.

Taylor holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.