About Chris Nicholson

I was born a U.S. citizen in Chania, a coastal city on the Greek island of Crete. I remember nothing of my birth town — my parents moved me home to Connecticut before I was one year old.

As a child, I developed an unusual attraction to writing. I led my sister Katie in several forays in publishing a Nicholson family newspaper, and later (around fourth grade) wrote and illustrated a book about a family adopting a dog named Rags. (The latter proved prophetic, as a decade later the Nicholson family did indeed adopt a dog with that name.) In high school, my creative efforts turned toward creative writing, and in 1988 to '89 I served as co-editor of my high school literary magazine, The Mind's Eye.

With encouragement from a high school English teacher and later a college journalism professor, I began considering a career in writing. I decided to work for the university newspaper, the Spectrum, and rose through its ranks, eventually serving as editor-in-chief for two years and writing a weekly humor column ("News from Tulsa") for two more.

One month after finishing full-time coursework at college, I was hired by the New York Times-owned Golf Digest magazine as a researcher, proofreader and copywriter. While working for Golf Digest, I came to know the editors of Tennis magazine, another New York Times publication. In March 1995, Tennis' trade magazine, Tennis Buyers Guide, assigned and then printed my first paid article, "Cutting Out the Confusion." The article was about the types of tennis balls on the market, a topic about which I remarked, "It's all up hill from here." Alas, I was wrong. My next assignment was about socks.

In January 1996, Tennis hired me as an editorial assistant, a role in which I wrote feature, equipment, news and humor pieces for the magazine. They eventually promoted me to assistant editor, then to associate editor, then to senior editor of Custom Publishing.

During my tenure at Tennis, I wrote occasional freelance articles for other publications, secured some contract jobs in corporate editing, continued work on a travel-essay book I had started in college, and wrote more humor essays. In early 2001, inspired by Ernest Hemingway's A Moveable Feast, I embarked on a 10-week sabbatical to live in Australia, searching for early-career inspirations that might fuel my future writing.

Today I work as a freelance writer and editor, based in southern Connecticut and New York City. While still writing about tennis, I have also branched into other areas of editorial coverage, including photography, men's interest, outdoor adventure and general humor. My editorial work has also opened successive doors in corporate writing, publicity, books and academia.

Aside from being a writer, I am a reader, photographer, left-fielder, avid traveler and music aficionado. I am also the father of a beautiful and smiley little girl, Maggie. I spoil her with love. Future boyfriends can deal with it.