Hello, My Name is Nikki and I Write…

Give me a second and I’ll tell you, as soon as I figure it out.

I suppose I spend most of my time writing children’s fiction. So, when people who want the short answer ask what I do, I say that. (Actually, I say Middle-Grade Humor for Boys, although that’s not entirely true. My current WIP has a female protagonist). But I also send off an essay every, well, um, every week or so, to a literary journal/magazine/contest/anthology. Yeah, I know. That’s a lot of essays. And a whole bunch of them have seen print. So I’m an essayist?

Of course, I also have three (count ’em!) puppet plays coming out in an anthology in January, and four children’s short stories that will go public sometime in 2010. So there’s that children’s fiction thing again… but the one title I never presumed to give myself is the one I’m wrestling with today: poet.

Gulp. That’s a tricky word. First, it sounds really pretentious to use it to describe yourself, and unreal. Like a joke you would write on your application for unemployment. Also, I don’t write THAT kind of poetry. You know, those poems that seem to be everywhere right now, that remind me a tangled balls of yarn made out of words. They’re just a mess, to me. Of course, that could be because I’m too thick to untangle their meanings. Very possible.

Anyway, what I’m trying to say is this: I have had another poem accepted by a literary journal: Front Range. I am delighted, and humbled, and confused. Poets, to me, are rare creatures. Special, in a “not at all like me” sense.

I’m not sure real poets read vampire romances and books of fart jokes and drink strawberry margaritas.

What do you think?

Posted in Children's Fiction, Essays, Miscellaneous on 12/15/2009 10:26 pm

6 Comments

  1. Congratulations! A poet even! I know a few poets, and while I’ve never caught any of them reading vampire romances (but I suspect they do), the fart books and strawberry margaritas are definitely in.

    Reply

  2. Nikki Loftin

    Thanks, Vonna. I’ll make sure and serve strawb margaritas if I ever get a chapbook pubbed. LOL

    Reply

  3. shelli cornelison

    Perhaps you could write a poem about a romantic vampire with strawberry margarita farts? 🙂
    Congrats on the poetry acceptance and all the hard work you put into your writing. You’re gonna be a Stah, a Supa Stah!

    Reply

  4. Nikki Loftin

    Shelli, I’ll leave that one for you to write. Thanks! But I don’t think poets get to be Stahs until they’re dead. Anyway, the hard work now isn’t writing… it’s getting ready for Xmas and maintaining a Zenlike state while my house is full of family. Ommmm….mygoshIneedamaragarita.

    Reply

  5. Jackie Taylor

    Congratulations. It is great seeing that you are getting to do what you really wanted to do and were so good at. Happy 2010
    Jackie, Mark, Ben and Zach Taylor

    Reply

    • Nikki Loftin

      Jackie! I miss you so much. Thanks for stopping by here… your boys are gorgeous!! So big. They’ll get autographed copies of any books I get published:-)
      Happy New Year!

      Reply

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