A Short Biography of Chris Nicholson
As a child, Chris developed an unusual attraction to writing. He led his sister Katie in several forays of 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 the same name.) In high school, Chris' creative efforts turned toward poetry, and in 1988 to '89 he served as co-editor of the school literary magazine, The Mind's Eye. With encouragement from a high school English teacher and later a college journalism professor, Chris began considering a career in writing. He decided to work for his university newspaper, the Spectrum, and rose through its ranks, eventually serving as editor-in-chief for two years and writing a weekly humor column (titled "News from Tulsa") for two more. One month after finishing his full-time coursework at college, Chris was hired by the New York Times-owned Golf Digest as a part-time researcher, proofreader and copywriter. While working for Golf Digest, Chris came to know the editors of Tennis magazine, also an NYT publication. In March 1995, Tennis' trade magazine, Tennis Buyers Guide, printed Chris' first paid article, "Cutting Out the Confusion." The article was about the types of tennis balls on the market, a topic about which Chris remarked, "It's all up hill from here." He was wrong. His next assignment was a piece on socks. In January 1996, Tennis hired Chris as an editorial assistant, a role in which he wrote feature, equipment, news and humor pieces for the magazine. Tennis eventually promoted him to assistant editor, then to associate editor, then to senior editor of Custom Publishing. During his tenure at Tennis, Chris wrote occasional freelance articles for other publications, secured some contract jobs in corporate editing, continued work on a travel-essay book he had started in college, and wrote more humor essays. In early 2001, inspired by Ernest Hemingway's A Moveable Feast, Chris took a 10-week sabbatical from the magazine and lived in Australia, searching for early-career inspirations that might fuel his future writing. Only the coming decades will indicate if it worked. For now, Chris justifies the experience with the writing of another travel-essay book about his trip. Today Chris works as a freelance writer and editor out of his home in southern Connecticut. While still writing about tennis, he's also branching into other areas of journalism, including men's interest, photography, outdoor adventure and general humor. Aside from being a writer, Chris Nicholson is a photographer,
reader, moviegoer, softball left-fielder, avid traveler, music aficionado,
acoustic guitar player and terrible singer. See Chris Nicholson's MediaBistro page photo by Colin Nicholson |
Chris
Nicholson, 36, was born a U.S. citizen in Chania, a coastal city on the
Greek island of Crete. He remembers nothing of his birth town — his
parents moved him home to the United States before he was one year old.