Check out this author spotlight for Nikki Nelson-Hicks!

You can find all the links for where to find her furthest down the page, and don’t forget to check out her books!

1. Hi! Welcome to my humble blog of all things bookish! I would like for us to start by getting to know you. Give us a short bio, please!

Nikki Nelson-Hicks born in Nashville, TN but lived in California, Budapest, Muscat and stopped in a half a dozen places in between; she doesn’t really call any place home.

She’s married to a former USMC Sniper who currently does Roman reenactments, so her garage looks like the set of Spartacus vomited in there. She two adult children. One of them is a professional illustrator and the other one is doomed to be as weird as his mother. She shares her domicile with five cats and a pair of dogs; two Roombas have choked to death on their fur.

She is a writer of a fistful of genres. She’s written horror, scifi, steampunk, mystery, and has one Sherlock Holmes story under her belt (but two others in the making). Much like her past, she doesn’t settle in one trope for very long. Imagination is a big place, why settle for one story?

All of her works can be found on Amazon in paperback or Kindle.

2. To get to know you just a little bit better, I’d like to ask you some this or that questions. Answer 5 of these and explain why you chose this or that, or maybe an entirely different alternative!

Winter, spring, summer or autumn?
I prefer spring and autumn. Both of those seasons are times of change. In Spring, the world is waking up and there is growth and beauty. In Autumn, everything is slowing down, going into a restful period. Life and Death. Winter and Summer are the plateaus for Spring and Autumn. Too static and boring.

Cat or dog?
Cats. I love being able to come home, give a ‘What’s up’ to my cat and they respond with a slow blink, a nod, and we’re done. That’s about all the energy I have to give to a relationship right now.

Also, you really have to earn a cat’s respect. I like that in relationship.

Dogs are emotional firehoses and slobber that crap over everyone.

Mountains or beaches?
Mountains. I was born and raised in Tennessee so I will always crave the trees, the dirt and the mountains. I spent the best years of my childhood either in a creek or lost in a field.

I lived in California for over 10 years. Beaches are fine but sand is just nasty and those birds are terrible. No thanks.

Plotter or pantser?
Like most things I dabble in both ponds.

Some of my stories, I will admit that I wrote that thing by the seat of my pants. Just winged the entire thing. That method worked for that story.

Some of my stories require a bit more research and pacing so those little beauties take a bit more plotting.

The story I am writing right now, Crown of Feathers, is definitely turning out to be a Plotter job. It is really swirling into a monster of a story.

Book or ebook?
I love the convenience of ebooks but I also forget I even have them and they go unread!

Also, I’m a very tactile person and being able to feel the page, write in the margins, and highlight paragraphs is a winner!

And, yeah, yeah
I know you can do that in Kindles but
ugh
..

3. When you look for books to read, what trope or type of story will always catch your attention?

I prefer horror, suspense, crime, or anything that looks like it has twisted a genre to another level.

4. What do you write? Tell us about your current projects and the latest happenings!

I’ve written horror, scifi, steampunk, weird western, mysteries, and even a Sherlock Holmes story. My ADHD monkey brain likes to flit all over the place so I rarely stay in one place for very long.

The one thing that you will always find in my stories are monsters and murders. My favorite compliment given to me was when I was called ‘the lovechild of Flannery O’Connor and H.P. Lovecraft”.

My current project is a story called Crown of Feathers. In Appalachian Folklore, if you find a ball of white feathers under a sick person’s pillow, it means they are fated to die and go to heaven. In my story, a young boy attempts to save his dying mother’s life by stealing the Crown of Feathers from underneath her pillow so that Death can’t find her. The next morning, his mother is awake but there is something very, very wrong and Eli soon learns that there are far worse things than death.

5. What is your most recent release? Give us a short presentation, cover, and a link for where to buy it!

I just released Stone Baby and Other Strange Tales in February 2021. It’s an anthology of short horror stories.

It’s available on Amazon in paperback and through Ingramspark.

6. If you could go back and give yourself one piece of advice as you started out on the path to become an author, what would it be?

Don’t wait for permission. There isn’t a special pen, a magical notebook or a college degree that will make you a Capital W Writer.  You come from a race of storytellers. Metaphor and magic run in your blood, sweetie, don’t you let anyone tell you any different.

7. Last but not least: where can we find you? Drop those links!

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nikcubed

Twitter: https://twitter.com/nikcubed

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nikcubed/

WordPress blog: http://nikkinelsonhicks.blog/

Amazon Author page: https://www.amazon.com/~/e/B00I34EF3S

My soon to be live website: www.nnhbooks.com