True Nicks finally writes her own story

AUTHOR, editor and poet True Nicks has always wanted to tell her own stories. With her latest release, Sentidos: My Young Adult Years in Prose, the author aims to give readers “a snapshot of the thoughts I've had on the things I've felt over time,” offering a personal glimpse into her life and creative evolution.

Sentidos is a collection of poems and prose that Nicks wrote throughout her teens and young adulthood, a “scattered timeline” that encompasses about two decades of her life. She said she rediscovered her old poems while cleaning last year and decided to put together a collection. The title, Sentidos, is a Spanish word that refers to "the senses," or "feelings."

“It’s not just me feeling things,” Nicks said, “but me also coming into a sense of myself and of the world around me...It kind of feels like a memoir, it kind of feels like a journey from my teens to now. So, this is the ‘senses’ that I have collected about myself and the world during that time.”

The earliest poem in the collection is from 2004, when the author was in her late teens. The poems are organised thematically in sections related to a different "sense," such as, A Sense of Hope and Light, and A Sense of Acceptance. Each poem is marked by the year it was written, with a short introduction that gives readers an understanding of what inspired the poem and her headspace at the time it was written.

While the book has been available since earlier this year, Nicks is set to launch a final version with additional poems online and in local bookstores on September 15.

Publishing Sentidos was an exercise in bravery for Nicks, as she says in the preface that it initially went against her "instincts" to publish her poetry, which is a deeply personal emotional outlet for her. Ultimately, she overcame her trepidation as she felt it was the right time to “put (the collection) out into the world,” to share her creativity and her life experiences, in the hopes that it may resonate with readers.

Nicks says creativity has always been a major part of her identity, describing herself as a "creative coddiwomple."

“A ‘creative coddiwomple’ is a phrase that I came up with...I came across the word ‘coddiwomple,’ which is a person who goes on a very determined manner towards a vague direction, and I always felt as if that word described me. I like to try a lot of things (and) the reason I added ‘creative’ onto it is because the things that I pursue have always been creative endeavours.”

This natural affinity for creativity has led her to pursue music, art, theatre and formal training in fashion as a bespoke tailor. But throughout all her experiments with different hobbies and careers, her interest in books and writing has remained constant.

“I've always liked to read as a child. Writing is something that I was naturally geared towards because I always wanted to tell my own story, (and create) the kind of stories that I wanted to read.”

Now, she’s at the point where she’s fully committed to pursuing her passion for literature, intentionally writing books for publication, instead of keeping them to herself.

“I have so many stories but I’m rewriting all of them and as I’m rewriting all of them, I’m also getting new ideas and trying my best to release a book every year and it does feel good to be doing the thing that I want to do.”

Sentidos follows Nicks’ first full-length published book, The Halfway Tree, an urban fantasy novel published in 2023. The novel put Nicks in the spotlight in April, as she was one of the featured authors in the First Time Authors showcase at the NGC Bocas Lit Fest.

The Halfway Tree is set in Trinidad and Tobago in the early 2000s and follows ten-year-old protagonist Cherise and her older brother Daniel, as they uncover mysterious events in their community involving supernatural elements based on local folklore characters such as douens and jumbies.

The book was originally a short story which Nicks wrote in 2015 before deciding to expand the idea into a full-length novel. Nicks explained that she wanted to write a story that offered an authentic representation of local culture.

“I did feel at the time that there wasn’t a lot of representation for Caribbean folklore in this sphere... I (felt that) when I started to write, I would like to write as someone who grew up here, still living in the Caribbean, (as if) I’m telling my nieces and nephews about folklore.”

When she’s not immersed in her own writing, Nicks helps other authors through her business Writer's Eagle where she offers professional editing services and manuscript consultation through her annual story development programmes. She is also director of the Caribbean Books Foundation, a locally-based NGO dedicated to the development and promotion of Caribbean literature.

To other creative people like herself, Nicks offers the following advice:

“Get into it and push yourself a little more, just don’t keep dreaming about it, whatever it is. If your heart can’t let it go, there’s a reason for that.”

Nicks’ books are available on Amazon, Digital Canopi via Jamet.te Publications, Barnes and Noble, Paper Based Bookshop and Scribbles and Quills.