Nikki Loftin

So, you write the next Great American Children’s Novel. You’re so proud of it, you can’t wait to show it to everyone – your family, friends, agent, check-out guy at the grocery. Just one more quick read, you think, and it will be ready to start winning Newbery prizes and making you J. K. Rolling-in-Dough. [...]

Let’s just get this out of the way: I won a poetry contest – with prizes! being sent to me! yay! -  this week. The spring poetry contest, to be specific, over on Absolute Write, the best place on the web for both disgruntled and gruntled writers to hang, chill, vent, and post their work. [...]

Happy Monday! It’s Overshare Day on Nikki’s Blog, so settle back in your comfy chairs and get ready to learn things you never wanted to know about me. Don’t worry, I have an actual reason for the information. Not a great reason, but a reason. So here goes.
One of the joys in my sad, pathetic [...]

This is the summer of the road trip. Last year, My mom and I took the boyz on a glorious, fun-filled, action-packed 36-hour (thank Heaven for in-car DVD players) road trip up to Ohio to visit my brother and his family. It was fun, even if my mom did insist on taking her two-pound toothless [...]

Okay, this one’s weird. Tonight, my dear friend and neighbor Sue came over to celebrate her birthday (um, by bringing over her birthday presents – chocolate-covered strawberries and muscat – to share. Take note, friends. On your birthday, YOU provide the feast!). She announced that her husband Bob had inadvertently mowed down the tall grass [...]

This month, two of my essays came out in the local parenting magazine, ParentWise:Austin. I wrote one about my mother-in-law Liz, who passed away over six years ago (leaving an enormous hole in my life) and one about my own mother, who is still around and just LOVES it when I tell funny stories about [...]

When I was a little girl, on the first day of May every year, I would gather wildflowers from the sides of the drainage ditch next to my house, wrap the stems in a bunch of wet paper towels and some tinfoil, and sneak across the street to Catherine and Leon’s house. I would put [...]

Writer Friends, I am pleased to report that my dear Writer Friend Lori and I both made our word quotas for the week. And that means you will not have the special treat of reading the fiery invective I had prepared — insults involving her parentage, her hygiene, and especially her writing technique — for [...]

Happy April Fool’s Day!
I love this holiday. I don’t get QUITE as into it as some of my friends (like the one who painted her sons’ fingernails in the night, and – oh, no! – couldn’t find the remover before school this morning), but I do my share.
This morning, I pranked my Zumba class by [...]

Oh, Writer Friends, I wasn’t being flippant in my last post. I do adore you. And so, I will share the following with you all: One of my agent-sisters (Suzette Saxton) is having a contest on her blog, with some very nice prizes. The grand prize is a 40-page partial submission WITH critique with Mon [...]