Nikki Nelson-Hicks had an interesting life, she moved a lot. From California to Budapest, she lived in a lot of places. She married to a former USMC Sniper who currently does Roman reenactments. Nikki has two adult children, one of them is a professional illustrator. She loves animals too, she has five cats, two dogs and two Roombas. As a writer, she tried out more genres, horror, mystery, scifi, steampunk, she created even a Sherlock Holmes story. On August 24, Nikki published Jake Istenhegyi, The Accidental Detective Omnibus Volume 1 and today, on October 1, Volume 2 is released.

If you want to know more about Nikki Nelson-Hicks and her works:

Facebook: Nikki Nelson-Hicks

Twitter: @nikcubed

https://wordpress.com/view/nikkinelsonhicks.blog

https://www.amazon.com/Galvanized-Girl-Nikki-Nelson-Hicks/dp/1732096724/ 

The interview

1. You have lived in a lot of place. Do you have any favourite? If yes, why that place?

My childhood was filled with moving. Constantly moving from one house to another and often at night. I didn’t realize that was weird until I was 11 and noticed that everyone in television shows moved during the daytime. I later learned it was easier to skip out on leases if you snuck out at night.

So, a rootless childhood served me well when I become a military wife. 

All of them had their own pluses and vices. 

We lived in several houses and cities in California.  San Clemente had beaches. Oceanside…beaches. Fallbrook….a nice Main Street.  

California will always have a warm spot in my heart because it was the first years of our marriage. I had a shopping list of crazy, stupid and wonderful jobs. I became a mother there and learned how to become a functioning adult! In a lot of ways, that is where I grew up. 

In Budapest, we first lived in an apartment building near the Parliament on the Pest side of town. That’s where all the businesses and government buildings were. Loads of history. There were bullet holes in the walls from the Revolution. Our building was right on the Danube River. We watched ice floes the size of cars drift down during that winter. 

In the Spring, we moved to the Buda side of the city. Think more suburban but remote, in the middle of nowhere. The house was a concrete block painted robin’s egg blue. It was terrible. During the Communist rule, the building was a tenement that held up to 5 families. It was heated by radiators. It was like living on the moon during the winter, that’s how cold it was. Behind us was a house that Roma squatters lived in and an empty lot beside us where they would bathe themselves.

Budapest is a beautiful city and Hungarians are lovely people and kind to tourists. Unfortunately, it was during this time that I began my battle with depression. I’d like to go back and enjoy it with a clearer head. 

In Oman, my main joy was to travel to the souks and dig through silver looking for relics to their pagan past. I collected many somts and zar rings that are used in djinn exorcisms. I was able to travel to Nizwah and visit a cave where the locals would leave candies and a thick gooey pudding for the Djinn. I didn’t see any Djinn but I did see a lot of fat goats. 

But, my favourite place is the where I am now. We moved to our very first HOME in 2017. This is the first place I’ve ever lived where I don’t feel as if I have to hold something in or cut something off to fit inside. 

2. Living in a lots of different cities had to be very interesting. How did they affected your writing and your stories?

Travel broadens the mind and perspective. Having lived in places where I was the Stranger, gives one compassion and empathy for anyone who is on the outside looking in. 

I think that is a trope that comes up a lot in my stories. 

3. You write stories in more genre. There is any, which you prefer and why?

Hard question to answer. I’m going to ramble until I find an answer.

Writing a story is like living another life inside your head. And, depending on the story, that can put you in a really dark place that spills over into your real life. For instance, “Stone Baby”, a story I wrote for the anthology Nashville Gothic (don’t go looking for it; the publisher went nuts and disappeared. True story.), I had to live inside a very disturbed sad woman for months. It’s not a bad story; but I doubt I’ll ever go back and work on it again. It’s not much fun.

So, maybe that’s the answer. Fun. I like work on stories that are FUN. I don’t let myself get wound up on genre. I’m guess I’m PanGenre.

4. Your next book is released today, on October 1. Can you tell me about it?

Well, the release date is a nebulous one. I’m still working on the manuscript so….

But I can tell you about it. What I am working on is Volume 2 of the Jake Istenhegyi: The Accidental Detective Omnibus. This book will contain the final three stories of the six story saga originally published by Pro Se Press (now re-edited, re-formatted by Throw Crow Press) . The titles included are: “Fish Eyed Men, Fedoras, and Steel Toed Pumps”, “Road Trips, Acid Baths, and One-Eyed Bastards”, and “Corpses, Coins, Ghosts and Goodbyes”. PLUS the first two chapters of the seventh book that will be released sometime in 2021.  

5. Moving and getting used a new place needs time. For you usually how long is to write a book?

Depends on the publisher. I’m a stickler for a deadline. If you give me one, I will meet it. 

Pulp stories are the easiest to push out. I was once contacted by a friend who was in dire need of a story to flesh out his anthology. I wrote it in seven days. It’s not a masterpiece but it filled the bill.

If left to my own devices, a short story can take up to 2-4 months to write. But that doesn’t include beta readers, editing and rewrites.

A novella, depending on the subject matter and how much research I have to do, up to six months. (If people only knew how much research I do for the weird stuff I write…)

My goal is to write something of a novel length. I can’t imagine how long that will take. Especially the way 2020 is tumbling along.

6. There is any topic, or genre, which you always wanted to try out?

Graphic Novels. I can’t draw but I’d love to work in that genre with someone who can. I have a story, “Crown of Feathers”, that I want to do as illustrated story. It’s on my list of Things To Do.

7. With so much travelling, surely a lot of interesting thing happened to you. Do you use any event from your life, or any person you know, in your stories?

I knew a guy in California. A gunnery sergeant in the Marine Corps. He never rose any higher than that rank because he “never took lessons in kissing ass”. A lifelong bachelor. His childhood was monastic. He was raised by Jesuits and thought about becoming a priest but couldn’t get past the celibacy thing. He did survived two tours in Vietnam but would never talk to me about it. “Why should I? How could I? You wouldn’t understand, Nik. You just wouldn’t.” I think…no, I know…I was his only female friend. He didn’t like women very much; his mother was abusive. He called me a “diamond in the rough”. He would call me and say, “Why did Nietzsche say God is Dead? I’ll be over in two hours for an answer.” Then I’d have to rush to my books and figure out an argument. And this was before GOOGLE, my friends. When he would the weekends at our house, we’d stay up all night and talk about everything. Religion. God. Politics. Philosophy. Science. He was so tall. 6’4” and built like a grizzly bear. He was also the only man I trusted with my children. He once told me, “Nik, I don’t care what you believe in but, goddammit, you gotta believe in something!” I learned a few years ago, he died, alone in his apartment. He was found by a stranger. 

He was the template for Barrington “Bear” Gunn, a character in the Jake Istenhegyi stories. I like to think that would please him. 

8. Do you prefer writing your books only in English, or if you could, you would like to try another language too?

I slip some Hungarian and Roma in the Jake stories because he’s half Hungarian and Roma. 

If a foreign publisher wanted to contract my stories, I wouldn’t so no!

9. You have a lots of pets. Do your characters have animal companions?

Weirdly, no! Ha. Just realized that. In all the published stuff, there are no pets. How odd.

However, in my unpublished/unfinished stuck in a trunk Travis Dare stories, he does have a cat, Graycat. His ex was awarded it in the divorce but it kept running away to live with Travis.

How weird. 

Wait….do protective swamp monsters count? There is a Boodaddy in Jake! 

10. If you could be anything, in any universe, what would you be? Why?

When I was younger, I wanted to be a Fury. I wanted to be Karma, a sword of justice, something that righted wrongs and kicked ass. 

Now, I want to be a healer or a teacher. Kindness is needed everywhere. 

Thank you for your answers! And you, dear Reader, what would you ask from Nikki Nelson-Hicks? 🙃