Sandra Nicholls

My bio!

I have published two books of poetry and numerous short stories, but after spending three years teaching English in a small Maritime town, I got the idea for my first novel, the quirky and darkly humorous And the Seas Shall Turn to Lemonade, published in October, 2011. It was short listed for the K. M. Hunter Artists Award for Literature. I won the Archibald Lampman Award for my second book of poetry, Woman of Sticks, Woman of Stones, and a poem from my first collection, The Untidy Bride, took third prize in the International Stephen Leacock Competition. I also had the pleasure once of being the Poet-in-Residence for the Peter Gzowski Golf Tournament for Literacy.

The new novel was described by one reader as a "comic tour de force" and another as "ingeniously outrageous".  It is quite a shift from the more introspective work I did as a poet, an uplifting romp through the unlikely relationship between two academic misfits and a crackpot scheme to establish a commune based on the theories of social philosopher Charles Fourier. I am often drawn to work that is both humorous and literary, and it was the Orange prize-winning book The Idea of Perfection by Kate Grenville that gave me the courage to explore humour in this book.

Working with my husband, guitarist and composer Roddy Ellias, I also write song lyrics. Thirteen of these lyrics have been set to music on our latest collaboration entitled Acts of Light, just released to rave reviews and available worldwide through iTunes and CD Baby.

I am currently working on a second and a third novel. The second, The Third Road, takes place in Malaya in the 1950s, and tells the story of the divided loyalties of a young Chinese girl who joins the Communist gerrillas who are fighting the British from deep within the jungle. The third, Rita and the Hurricane, explores the ups and downs of marriage in Blossom, a town about to be hit by a major hurricane.