Nicki Orser

I took my first creative writing class almost on a dare—an item scribbled on a list in the back of The Artist’s Way in 1994. I didn’t think it would change anything. Instead, it redirected everything.
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Since then, I’ve followed writing through the winding parts of my life: raising children, surviving loss, piecing together what’s inherited and what’s chosen. Along the way, I completed an MA at Sacramento State University and later an MFA in Creative Writing at San Francisco State University, where I received the Joe Brainard Creative Writing Fellowship.
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My essays have appeared in The Dunes Review, OmniVerse, American River Review, and Susurrus, and I’m currently at work on a memoir-in-essays that threads together family history, body-memory, and the stories that insist on being told.
WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING
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The writing here and the story itself are too good to sit in a drawer.
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TONI JENSEN
Author of Carry;
Faculty, Writing By Writers Conference
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A voice broken by honesty, shorn clean of sentimentality, speaking from a deep place in the soul far past pretense or performance. ​​​​
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LESLIE JAMISON
Judge, Lit Fest
Emerging Writer Fellowship
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The language was spare and powerful. The anecdotes were authentic and helped to lead the story to a memorable conclusion. ​​​​
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HUGH RILEY
Judge, Honeybee Prize
in Nonfiction
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