About
Photo Credit: Scott Peat
Nicole Christie has been writing since age 7, when she penned her first short story, Nancy the Nanny Goat. Throughout elementary school, her passion for Judy Blume’s truthful tales fueled her to write her own books, which her teachers frequently chose as classroom “story time” selections. At the age of 12, she became the youngest person to place in the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest for her submission of the opening paragraph to the worst novel ever written. There was no monetary prize involved, but her story and photo did make the front page of the local paper, which was nifty enough for her to keep writing.
Nicole received her B.A. in sociology from the University of Washington and is also a graduate of the university’s nonfiction writing program. She began her career having too much fun in radio promotions, then learned to fly by the seat of her pants in PR and marketing with Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s investment and project management company, Vulcan. She then cut her corporate communication teeth for five years at Microsoft before achieving one of her lifelong dreams: moving to New York City and launching NICO, a boutique communications firm specializing in employee communications strategy and development for clients such as Microsoft, Pfizer, WebMD, Kraft, American Express, NASDAQ, Ingersoll Rand, Barrick Gold of North America, and CIT. Somehow, Nicole also finds time to earn the occasional byline as a freelance writer; her work has appeared in The New York Post, Seattle Weekly, The Seattle Times, BettyConfidential.com, Go World Travel, and Citysearch.com, and is featured in the anthology Doing Good for Goodness’ Sake.
Nicole thinks it’s incredibly cool that she a) was born on 10/19 at 10:19 and b) is a “Thursday’s child” who “has far to go” (who knows what that means, but it sounds good). In between writing, reading, and running, she indulges her passion for “music through earphones” and firmly believes that minor hearing loss is a small price to pay for the strength and inspiration she has gained from all things musical. Sometimes you’ll find her singing her lungs out with the Seattle Ladies Choir or scratching her funny bone as a comedy writer and performer; she studied in New York City with Groundlings alum Holly Mandel and Second City veteran Armando Diaz, and also performed with the troupe What’s Cooking?
A Seattle native, Nicole is both a Mariners and Yankees fan (yes, it’s possible), braves the rain sans umbrella, and has a soft spot for grunge bands (particularly any involving Stone Gossard). After four years in New York City – where she learned to tolerate public transportation and outrageous cat calls from food delivery guys – she returned to her hometown in 2009, where she’s shunned public transportation in favor of her red MINI Cooper and still awaits cat calls from socially awkward techies and emo dudes.
