Taylor Moore of Bryan is an author, screenplay writer, producer and a sixth-generation Texan and recently released his first published novel, “Down Range: A Garrett Kohl Novel,” which aspired from his life experiences while working for the CIA and state Senate, backpacking around South America, farming and ranching in Brazos County and having a love of storytelling.
Moore, 47, was born in Bryan and raised in Navasota on a farm and ranch with his family. He graduated from Texas A&M University with a degree in journalism in 1997, and attributes Aggieland as a major part of his upbringing. He studied Spanish at A&M and studied abroad in Mexico, while later interning on Capitol Hill.
After graduation, he worked for the Texas Senate Natural Resources Committee in agriculture, oil and gas. He attended graduate school at Pepperdine University, studying economics and international relations, and did an internship at the U.S. Mission to the European Union in Brussels. That led him to a career at the CIA around 9/11 when he knew he wanted to serve in some capacity.
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“I was in the CIA for about four years and then had an opportunity to continue doing intelligence work with the military. So I ended up going contract and working for Booz Allen,” he said. “I had an opportunity to continue to do intel work but do it here in Texas. I worked in Fort Sam Houston with the Army and finding military intelligence support for them and got to do a lot of neat things, like counternarcotics and force protection.”
After starting a language program in Argentina, at 24, Moore backpacked for six months in South America. In 1999, he ventured to Antarctica.
“I did a trip to Antarctica on a Russian research vessel or Russia icebreaker and went down there and I just had my backpack. I took a cattle boat to the southern part of Chile and went all the way up through a lot of common deserts with a guide and over the Andes into Bolivia,” Moore said. “Later on my own I went all through Bolivia, then did the Inca Trail in Peru and climbed Machu Picchu ... went back to the Bolivian jungles and stayed on an Argentine cattle ranch and made my way back to Buenos Aires and ultimately back home.”
After settling in Amarillo with his wife, Diana, and their children, Bennett and Maddie, he started work in the oil and gas industry and became a service lineman. Since he was always writing and had written a few unpublished novels, Moore kept his laptop on hand so he could write whenever he needed.
“A ranch owned by John Erickson of Hank the Cowdog series was one of the first places I went out and drilled a couple of wells for,” he said. “He was just one of the coolest, neatest guys you’ll ever meet. And he encouraged me to start writing. I told him I wrote my first book in 2000 and I hadn’t really done anything since then. So he encouraged me to start writing again.”
Moore said his passion for storytelling began to pick up once more as he wrote “Down Range,” which he categorizes as a modern-day Western and military spy thriller.
“Down Range is an interesting book and a sort of a culmination of all my experiences and it’s a story of coming home for Garrett Kohl,” Moore said. “He’s been outed as the undercover agent and he’s been out in the world doing all these things and is a former Green Beret and he kind of has some fence mending to do back home on the Texas High Plains. He grew up on a ranch near Canadian Texas and he needs to get back.
“The book starts with him in Afghanistan and he ends up getting in a bit of trouble with the CIA, where he’s working. He’s at a base, but some things happen. I won’t give that away. But he ends up on a protective custody assignment and bringing this Afghan boy back home with him that he has to keep safe for a while. ... But he comes home and he finds there’s more trouble going on than he’s ever imagined.”
Moore said the book is an exciting and meaningful read and there are parts of his life that he incorporated in the story.
“When I was at the CIA, I remember being at a meeting and an FBI agent was there and he said, ‘I don’t understand what you do.’ And he didn’t mean that he literally didn’t understand what the CIA does, but he just meant ‘You guys operate in a gray world that is so different from what we do. It’s just strange,’” Moore said. “So the idea of ‘Down Range’ was what if I took a sort of cowboy, or sort of a black-and-white law-and-order kind of guy, and what if I put him in the gray world of the CIA? How would he handle it? And so that makes it fun, and it makes for a fine read.”
Moore advised anyone who wants to become a published author to write as much as they can and complete their project.
“I tell people that the road to getting published starts with a million words,” he said. “People start books all the time, but they don’t finish them. And that’s really the most important part is seeing it through. Even if it’s something that you’re never going to put out there, start and finish it.”
He has completed the next book in the series, “Firestorm,” which is set to come out in August and is currently working on the third novel. He also sold the rights to the series and it is in the works of becoming a TV show.
Moore will present his novel at a meet and greet in the Navasota Public Library at 1 p.m. today.
“Down Range” is available at bookstores and on Moore’s website at taylormoorebooks.com.