Grubbies

About Nicole

As a student of the tutorial system at Oxford and Cambridge, I relish the opportunity to work one-on-one with writers. Consulting can consist in correspondence over email, critique in the form of detailed letters and end-comments as well as marginalia, line-editing of manuscripts, in-person conversations or phone conversations that include brain-storming or recommended reading and revision steps. I am happy to offer feedback to the seasoned author seeking the perspective of a close reader on their work and the writer nearing publication or applying for fellowships, as well as the inspired beginner who is the midst of choosing a form and finding a voice. I am eager to help the MFA applicant examining programs and selecting writing samples as well as the graduate seeking admission to competitive writing colonies and residencies. I can enter in the early stages, in the middle or at the end of a project with a focus on first lines and pages or deep structure and arc.

My specialty is the long form personal essay (memoir) and the triple-decker novel (my PhD was on the works of Charles Dickens; I have taught classes on modern-day epics such as All the Light We Cannot See; and the contemporary bildungsroman : Demon Copperhead and The Goldfinch). Of genre, I cannot get enough of ghost stories, and take an interest in historical and post-colonial fiction with an international backdrop. I consider place a character, and description and dialogue essential to the art of storytelling. In the world of non-fiction, books about books (literary criticism, book reviews, literary biography, art writing), paeans to the natural world (especially those involving animals and the night sky), and memoirs of medical illness and of family trauma hit close to home. I am willing to read anything experimental in style or structure, as well as writing which follows closely on the heels of tradition. The theatre is my model for all things dramatic, so playwrights are always welcome to get in touch should they want an eye on a script in the making; ditto for career actors, seeking an editor for a tale of the profession.