Nic wrote the poem, RUSALKA’S CALL.
Gnome & UnGnome Facts About Nic:
Nicole “Nic” Jean Turner (she/they) is an artist from New England with an affinity for vignettes, napping outdoors, and conversations that confront the human condition.
They write in cursive to hide the butchered spelling that would otherwise raise suspicion about their master’s degree in writing.
Nic’s name is pronounced, NIK-ol GEE-n TURN-er.
They have a Master’s degree in writing.
Nic does not have a master’s degree in spelling.
They are fascinated by romance, conspiracy, and the avant-garde.
Nic has published over 45 individual works of poetry and fiction with over two dozen presses since 2012.
To explore more of their distinctively accessible verse and find yourself between the lines, visit Poetry-Journal.com
Absol’s Q&A with Nic:
Good day, Nic! Thanks for being our LEGEND of the WEEK!
Here we go! If you could be any magical or legendary creature, who or what would you be?
Bigfoot. I’m a big conspiracy* nerd, and it seems like doesn’t cause any direct harm to anyone. It seems like a lot of mythological creatures come from origin stories of fear and I’d hate to be the source of distress for a whole group of people.
*Like, aliens and unsolved mysteries. Not, flat-earth q-savior lizard people run the world ideologies. I often include in bios that I’m fascinated by conspiracies, but these days worry about saying that without clarification.
You’d be surprised how good Bigfoot is at Scrabble! There’s an UnGnome fact!
Can you tell us a little about how you came to be a part of Gnomes & UnGnomes?
Something like a year ago I was writing in a coffee shop and decided to take a break and wander around the rest of the mill. I ended up on the top floor poking my head into the Writers’ Loft to ask about their hours and started chatting with a person who was trying to get a projector set up for a soon-to-start workshop. It came up that my occupation is in IT, and they asked if I wanted to be IT support for the Loft. I chuckled but they were serious. I got the projector running and after the workshop we exchanged information, and now I take care of the website and drop by whenever a member needs a technical hand.
At some point around the time the submission window opened, I was talking to another Loft member about changes to the website, and they asked if I was going to submit something for the anthology. I hadn’t planned on it, but they cautioned me that there was no guarantee I’d get an acceptance as they get a lot of submissions so I shouldn’t feel bad if they didn’t take my work, and I sort of took that as a challenge. I’ve never intentionally written for children so I felt way out of my depth. I went out to a used bookstore and took home a stack of children’s books of poetry and myths to figure out the tone and language and winged it from there.
Wow, that’s a cool Loft origin story. Tell me about your connection to the Dover Demon (who I’ve never met) and the lonely Rusalka (who I try to avoid)?
My poems are about the Dover Demon, which is a local myth/creature where I live, and Rusalka, who is like a Czechlosolvakian equivalent to The Little Mermaid…but think less Disney and rainbows, more like the original fairytale. Various retellings/beliefs change by region and time in history, but Rusalka is typically depicted as a lonely river mermaid. Many variations believe Rusalka is a child, and many believe she is a danger, luring others to drown in the river so that she is not alone.
My great-grandparents came to the US from the Czech Republic, and I’ve had a fascination with their art and culture since I was a kid, which I think much of comes from never knowing them and only hearing stories about them. When I sat down to draft out these poems I kept asking myself ok, what mysteries interested me as a kid? When we workshopped it and I had the chance to see and edit where it fell flat as other people read it, it became a really personal poem with some layers that I’m really happy about.
The Dover Demon is a creature that was spotted by some teenagers back in the 70s, and there really isn’t a lot known or written about it, which gave me some artistic freedom to run with. This one is less personal in the specific creature, other than proximity. The connection I have with the poem itself is in the last couple of lines, which came from asking myself while writing, what would I have liked to read as a kid? As in, what message would have impacted me through a poem when I was little?
You do IT support for the Loft and write poetry, where do those intersect?
What a cool question Absol!
In maybe every job interview I’ve ever had, I’ve said something along the lines of, writing poetry and storytelling makes me happy, but student loan servicers don’t care about my happiness, they want money. There is no money in poetry. I went to a technical high school where I learned web design and computer programming as a teenager, and so I built a career as a webmaster despite going to college and grad school for art and writing; someone at the loft once said I’m a poet cosplaying as an IT guy, and that could be my business card tagline. My IT work makes it possible for me to write, so I care about it and put as much love and care into it as I do every poem. This is why I’d say Poetry-Journal.com is where the two sides intersect.
Poetry-Journal.com is a website I’ve been working on for the last decade. When I started it in college it was NJTPoetry.com, but I’ve dropped the NJT from the URL because it’s not about the author. Poetry-Journal.com is a free digital publication of poetry and poetic storytelling. The distinctively accessible verse invites readers who may not ‘get’ poetry to reconsider that preconceived notion. An offering to find yourself between the lines.
Nic, thank you so much for taking the time to answer my questions!
writersloftpress.com 