We recently sat down with our wonderful faculty member Lisa Nikolidakis to discuss books, writing, and life.
Where are you from and how do you use your surroundings to write?
I’m currently in Houston, TX—I’ve been here a little over a year—but in 2021, I had twelve addresses, I think. My life has been a bit upside-down for a bit due to chronic illness, so I’m not precious about process. I can write anywhere, on any device. The constant in all of that flux is nature. No matter where I land, the first thing I do is pull up a map and look for the swaths of green and blue. When I was in north Florida, that meant a lot of time spent at St. Mark’s National Wildlife Refu. In Indiana, Wesselman Woods. And in Houston, I’ve been stalking a flock of roseate spoonbills at Anahuac Wildlife Refuge.
Nature grounds and inspires me. It is my church.
Where do you draw inspiration from when writing and how is writing implemented in your life?
I’m blessed with a great problem for a writer: I am curious about everything. Okay, maybe not everything. I’m not interested in, say, tax codes. But I am riddled with obsessions and questions. As a result, I have more ideas than I have time. The danger lies in the excitement that comes with starting something that I’m newly fascinated with—say, a story about snail farming (that’s real)—and I can easily back burner something that has momentum. For years, I had a lot of starts and fewer finishes. Starting is the easy part, I think. Discipline is what gets you over the finish line. I’ve learned to leave myself notes on the thing I want to start, but I don’t abandon what I’m already working on.
What are your favorite ways to get out of writer’s block? Any tips?
Foster as much curiosity about what you want to write as you can. You think you know everything about your story? Ask more questions. This applies across genres.
Also, just write. Let yourself write without worrying about someone reading it or publishing it. Any draft is better than no draft.
How can a low-residency MFA program benefit writers?
Our lives are impossibly busy—thanks, capitalism! A low-res can be a great fit for a person who is balancing work, partnerships, family, and other responsibilities but also wants to strengthen their writing. The kind of one-on-one mentorship that students get in a low-res program is awesome.
Is there anything else you would like to share?
Yes! My memoir, No One Crosses the Wolf, came out on September 1, 2022. I worked on it for seventeen (SEVENTEEN) years. While it’s a dark read—lots of trauma—it’s got a hopeful ending, I promise. I write this not just in the hopes that someone buys it (although, please do lol), but also so people can see that sometimes, projects take a heck of a lot longer than we think they will.
Lisa Nikolidakis holds a PhD in Creative Writing from Florida State University and is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing and faculty advisor of P.R.I.D.E.. She teaches in the Ashland University MFA Program. She writes nonfiction and fiction, returning often to themes of trauma, mental health, chronic illness, music, and nature. She also writes humor, mostly for survival.
Nikolidakis’s memoir, No One Crosses the Wolf, about the traumas of a perilous childhood, a shattering murder-suicide, and a healing journey from escape to survival to recovery is out with Little A.
Her essay “Family Tradition” was selected by Jonathan Franzen for inclusion in The Best American Essays 2016. Other writing of hers has won various prizes and mentions, including the Annie Dillard Prize for Creative Nonfiction 2021, Gulf Coast Prize, Indiana Review’s Fiction Prize, the Tobias Wolff Award for Fiction, the Calvino Prize, A Room of Her Own’s Orlando Prize, Cincinnati Review’s Robert and Adele Schiff Award for Prose, Hunger Mountain’s Frank Mosher Short Fiction Prize, The Briar Cliff Review’s Annual Nonfiction Contest, and The Chattahoochee Review’s Lamar York Prize.
Her aim is to help demystify the shame of trauma by continuing to write and speak publicly about it.