The Elk's Journal

RENÉE NICHOLSON

Interview with Renée Nicholson by Keegan Lester, ERL guest author and acclaimed American writer with WV Roots

Renée K. Nicholson is the author of a collection of essays, Fierce and Delicate:Essays on Dance and Illness; two poetry collections, Roundabout Directions to Lincoln Center and Post Script; and co editor of the anthology Bodies of Truth: Stories of Illness, Disability, and Medicine. She serves as director of the humanities center at West Virginia University.

“Probably everything,” Renée writes, when I ask: What do people get wrong about Ballet?

“Mostly that we all have eating disorders. Or that it is easy-our job, I suppose, is to make things that are super tough look effortless, so that one's on us.” This answer sparks two natural digressions. First: Hotdogs. How do you dress them? “Right now I'm in a fall kraut, dicedonion, and mustard phase,” she says. “I sometimes also like a sweet-n-sour version with kraut and slaw, and of course I like WV Slaw dogs, and especially chili dogs from Custard Stand, and also chili dogs from Mario's Fishbowl with a side of Fishbowl chips.” And the second digression, if you make super tough look effortless and blame yourself for it — where does self love enter the equation? “As for self love, I try to just remember that each day is an opportunity. Mostly, I try to not feel trapped by the things I want…and I embrace other things about me—

With Nicholson, there are so many actualized selves to love: A professional ballerina, a professor, a writer, collector of vintage sweaters and cardigans, dog mom to the wonderful golden retriever, Gelsey, griller and connoisseur of soups and now the Director of The West Virginia University Humanities Center. BuzzFeed commented on her latest book. Fierce and Delicate, “Nicholson’s previous experience as a poet is evident in this lyrical and fascinating memoir.” Her book debuted last spring to critical acclaim, stitching pieces of each of these selves together to create something truly more complex than their pieces alone.

“I realized that I could be this new self without giving up my love of ballet, but I could be other things…and I'm still discovering all the things that make me.” Renée wrote this in response to a question I asked about her essay “In Sickness,” which details her diagnosis of Rheumatoid Arthritis during her ballet career. It was an essay that got me through my own difficult medical diagnosis, and I find myself going to her words often. “I like to send cards, and find presents, and I like to surprise people, and grill for friends. These may be completely different than performing a classical variation in a ballet, or being a part of a swirling mass of tutus. They're all good.” She continues “I think when you're used to coming to something day in and day out, you carry that ability across artistic pursuits. I like daily writing, even if I don't use everything I write each day.” “I got into narrative medicine specifically when approached by a palliative care physician who had a patient with ALS. Jamie, the patient, didn't have a lot of time left, and desperately wanted to write a memoir. So, I met with him and began to help him, and as I looked for help and models, I kept running into this program at Columbia University called "narrative medicine." I ended up doing a graduate certificate in Columbia's program, because I became fascinated by how this approach could really help people feel more whole. The origin of the word "heal" comes from the same as to make whole. That makes sense to me on a lot of levels. Finally, I like the idea that my art can be in service to others.” I asked for some of her Appalachian Literature recommendations and she responded with “Ann Pancake, whose work I deeply

admire. River of Earth by James Still”… “the novel really worked on me. There are so many poets who really speak to me. A couple of years ago I got to read with Jeff Mann, and it was such a blast. And in his poems I feel a kind of Whitmanesque sensibility, but for this time and place. Randi Ward's work is a clinic in distillation, and really honors the natural world. When I read her poems, it's like learning a secret. I'm really excited about the new book by Neema Avashia. This is just a smattering; this region has an abundance of good writers with compelling work. I think about writers who live in that Northern Appalachian space, like Dave Housley, who takes that region around Altoona to the page. I adored Amy Jo Burns's memoir Cinderland, which not only showed life in the embers of the steel towns skirting Pittsburgh, but how fraught girlhood could be in these places. A novel that's coming out soon is Alison Stine's Trashlands, which shows an Appalachia ravaged by climate change. And JT Hill's .COMBlind Man's Bluff spoke to me on so many levels.” Though Renée has lived all over, mostly for ballet, and once ELK RIVER LIVING was an Emerging Writer-in-Residence, she’s now lived longest in West Virginia. “When I was young, West Virginia was the place where I just got to be a normal kid, hanging out. I spent a lot of time training in dance, so this time always stood out to me. So I guess West Virginia always means family to me. My 39

father's granddad, Holly Parsons, had a farm in Jackson County and his mom, Opal, moved to the Parkersburg area when she married my granddad. They lived mostly in Vienna, where Dad grew up. My mother moved to Parkersburg when her father was transferred there, and my parents met in high school in the 1960s at PHS. They've been married 51 years now. When I was a kid, we would always go to Parkersburg to see family and especially in the summers and holidays.” “My granddad and great-granddad were carpenters, along with a lot of the family. They made things. They told stories. I think in some ways that's the impulse of my writing--those family stories, spun and told, and crafting of things from raw material. I have a claw-foot cherry wood table that my great-grandfather made. I think about that table a lot, made with all hand tools, with care and craft. I like to think I see a bit of him in this piece of furniture. It's simple, elegant, and makes me aware of that beauty. Maybe that's part of it too. Maybe that's why I hand write my earlier drafts? And I'll swear by Mister Bee potato chips as a great writing snack. They're really the only chips I eat.” Renée is hard at work on her next book. “It always seems like a one-off becomes something more, and then all of a sudden, I'm working on a book project.” One of the biggest music lovers I know, if you ask she will tell you about Prince, and how much he influenced ballet. How the first live performance of "Purple Rain" was at a benefit for the Minnesota Dance Theatre… which lifted the company from financial ruin. “I was raised on some of the jazz greats, like Miles Davis and Charlie Parker, and lots of R&B and Soul-- Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, The Temptations, Tina Turner, Sly and the Family Stone. I have boxes of old vinyl and my dad's old turntable and if I listen to all those records I can kind of trace how Prince spoke to me in a very specific sonic way. The first Prince song I truly loved was "I Wanna Be Your Lover" which I heard and sang along to way too young. But so much of being young is figuring out how to listen to taboo music, read stuff you shouldn’t." This new book began when “I wrote a short essay about a song I heard my young niece sing that I knew as a young adult. The song was "Sex and Candy" by Marcy's Playground, and the version my niece knew was Maroon 5's, because there was a time she knew every song by Maroon 5. I wrote about my very different feelings about that song from the 1990s to the 2010's. And I read it with you, Keegan, because I was nervous about reading at the hip music venue, 123 Pleasant Street. I was hoping not to look old, or foolish, but it really went over, to my great surprise. And then I was encountering cover songs everywhere! But the book is about more than covers. It's about how over the last years I've been remade. I lost my younger brother to cancer, I lived through a pandemic. There's lots about how we make it through, about friendship, and about how we change and morph into new versions of ourselves.”

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AROUN D THE ELK

Elk River Living Speaks to First-Graders at Elk Elementary Center

By Lauren Elizabeth Campbell, ERL Contributing Author and Editor-in-Chief of Rock & Roamer magazine.

Healthnet's aeromedical services team visiting Elk Elementary Center first-graders.

Pinch Volunteer Firefighters teach about fire safety and being a firefighter.NOV 2021 Last month, Cyndi Tawney, editor of Elk River Living received an email from Teresa Hoffman Jackson, a first-grade teacher at Elk Elementary Center, asking if we would speak to the entire first-grade class about what it's like to be professional writers and how a magazine operates. Thrilled with the opportunity to further Elk River Living's involvement in the community and teach children about the joys of writing, Cyndi and I began preparing how to explain how magazines go from an idea to print to firstgrade students. We were one of several speaking groups part of Elk Elementary Center's neighborhood study. The first-grade students are learning the different careers available in the Elk River area from the people who hold them. Other speakers included Healthnet's aeromedical services team members,

who flew a helicopter on the school's soccer fields to demonstrate how they would transport a patient during a critical emergency, and firefighters from Pinch Volunteer Fire Department, who brought a fire truck for the kid's to see. We explained Elk River Living’s mission, to tell stories of all the fantastic people and happenings of those along the Elk River, and reinforced that everyone has a story worth telling. We came up with mock story ideas, completed interviews with the first-graders, and with magazine spreadsheets from The Printing Press, showed them how Elk River Living first looks when it is printed, how to fold the magazine, and left each of them with an Elk River Living magazine of their own to browse. Their young, brilliant minds absorbed it all and left them intrigued with questions…

How long does it take to write an article?

It depends on the topic, but usually somewhere between one to three hours.

How much is the magazine?

Elk River Living believes everyone deserves to read our content, and because of our amazing advertisers, it's free to everyone along the Elk

River.

Where can you get the magazine?

We place printed magazines for anyone to pick up in the businesses that advertise with us, and we also publish free online. We also learned that the first-graders are already seasoned writers! They have journals and are given a topic to write about each morning. After our visit, we created the magazine First Grade, personalized to the first-grade class of Elk Center Elementary. The magazine included articles on what a magazine is, our visit to their class, the steps to make a magazine, and the different types of magazines. Jackson said her class plans to continue First Grade, completing a second issue with articles written by her first-graders.