Chatting with Russell Nichols

Russell Nichols is a speculative fiction writer and endangered journalist. Raised in Richmond, California, he got rid of all his stuff in 2011 to live out of a backpack with his wife, vagabonding around the world ever since. Look for him at russellnichols.com.

Russell is the author of “Everything Burns Going Down” from Radon Issue 7.

Q: How do you approach structuring your poems? Do you begin with a certain form in mind, or do you let the form coalesce around the words as you write?

Depends on the piece. Most times, I start with the concept and from there, the poem can evolve into a structure that fits the theme or idea. Sometimes, as a prompt, I experiment with a form I’ve never used before.

In the end, I let the poem tell me what shape it wants to be—and if it even wants to be a poem at all.

Q: How do you think endangered journalists are faring in the 2020s?

On the verge of extinction. And not a single conservation campaign in sight.

Q: How does writing keep you and others, as you claim, from dying?

What I’m writing now—even this very sentence you’re reading at this moment—will be here beyond my physical form. Words transcend death.

Q: What prompted you to begin your nomad lifestyle?

My wife Asia and I had a destination wedding in St. Lucia and had our honeymoon out there. It was just the two of us. We got a taste of living outside the country. Coming back home after that, we felt a taste just wasn’t enough. So we decided to get rid of our stuff and travel the world for a year.

That was 13 years ago.

Q: You mentioned before that you wake up at 3 a.m. to meditate and then write. Do you still follow this routine for your creative process?

I still start every writing session with meditation. That’s a ritual. But the exact timing depends on where I am in the world.

For instance, we were living in Scotland this past summer. Up there, the sun didn’t set till around 11 p.m. And when I was waking up around 4 a.m., the sun was already popping out. My circadian rhythm didn’t know what was happening.

But regardless, it’s usually somewhere between 3 a.m. and 5 p.m. I can do editing or journalism in the daylight. But to slide into that full-on flow state creative zone, the muse refuses to meet me any other time except in those magic hours before dawn.

Q: How do afrofuturism and hip-hop combine for you?

Afrofuturism and hip-hop both represent pushing boundaries, staying creative, and recontextualizing Black identity in a fresh way.

On the hip-hop side, I’m drawing from its subversive style and dense lyricism. On the afrofuturism side, I’m drawing from imagined worlds and speculative social commentary. These are the turntables I’m mixing with. Spun together, I’m able to deliver works that remix the past and future at once while still grounded in the culture.

Q: Does your minimalist aspirations conflict or enhance your prose? Do you take pains to layer your writing and evoke your intended meaning in as few words as possible? Or is there a constant tension between wanting to over-explain and say simply?

I’m all about getting my point across with the fewest amount of words, but still leaving room for layers to unfold. It’s that tricky balance between dropping enough for the work to be understood on some level and not over-explaining. I might be tempted to dive deeper, break everything down, but I’ve learned to let the words breathe, let the reader fill in the blanks, and never say more than I need.