Meet Nico Silver

In my quest to interview all the authors nominated for Best Romance Novel in the inaugural Indieverse Awards, I had the pleasure of connecting with Nico Silver. (Congratulations to Varsha Chitnis, who won the category with The Art of Taking Second Chances!). Nico’s spicy standalone MM urban fantasy romance, Heart of Outcasts, was nominated alongside When Ivy Met Adam, and we couldn’t be prouder.

With the release of A Caress of Water (Three Realms, Nine Monarchs: Book 3) just around the corner—perfectly timed with the winter solstice—we thought today would be the ideal moment to catch up. I’m thrilled to introduce you to this talented author and illustrator, who also happens to be a skilled book designer and cover artist. I’ll let them introduce themself.

NICO: I’ve been writing and drawing for as long as I can remember but got serious about actually finishing stories in my twenties after I completed a master’s in folklore and wrote a folklore-based story I was really happy with. I wrote and submitted some short stories and got a couple of things published in small online magazines (under a different pen name), most of which don’t exist anymore. In 2011 I got more serious and started to look at self-publishing. I wrote and published the first three books in what became my Fictive Kin urban fantasy series, and basically did everything wrong, from covers that weren’t that great to zero marketing. Then I went through a traumatic event (my partner at the time died suddenly, and my whole life was changed) and suddenly found myself unable to write or even read fiction. I read a whole lot of natural history books during that time! Fast forward to a couple of years ago, when I started reading fiction again (even more voraciously than before!), and I came across my old files for my urban fantasies and started reading them. I discovered that I still loved them and adored my characters, so I re-published them with new covers, edited and published the fourth book that I’d left in hand-written draft, and wrote a fifth book. And that’s when I discovered I loved writing romance. All my books had romantic sub-plots, but I wanted to make the romance more front-and-center, and so far, I’ve written three spin-offs that I would call urban fantasy romance. Then, as a long-time reader and lover of epic fantasy, I wanted to try something with deep worldbuilding to back up the romance and ended up with the first two books in Three Realms, Nine Monarchs, which I usually market as epic romantic fantasy, but which could definitely fall under the romantasy umbrella. I’m currently working on book three in that series and have so many ideas for side stories!

JEN: I’m so sorry for your loss, Nico. That’s a lot. Thank you for sharing your story! I’m so glad you found your books—or really, that you and your stories found each other. What’s your favorite of your own books?

NICO: I love all my books, of course, but A Vision of Air is really the book of my heart (or the first book in the series of my heart?). I love these characters so much and I want everyone else to love them, too. They’re also a lot of fun to draw, so I get to follow both my creative streams at once.

I'm self-published as an author, though I would certainly entertain the idea of hybrid. I don't think I'd want to give up the control of self-publishing entirely, though. As an artist, I do have work in a small local gallery but for bookish art I’ve so far only done my own art, but I’m open to commissions from any authors.

JEN: Note taken!

Tell me your origin story.

NICO: This one’s pretty silly. When I was about six, I went to a toy store with my mom and saw this huge stuffed pony that a kid my size could ride on. I wanted that thing so badly! Of course, my mother didn’t buy it (it was probably extremely expensive), but I wouldn’t shut up about it, so she got me a notebook with blank paper and a pile of colored pencils and crayons, and said, "Why don’t you make up some stories about the adventures you would have with that pony?" or something to that effect. And that was it. I started writing and drawing stories and never looked back. I’d always been a pretty creative kid, but that kind of kicked everything into a new gear.

JEN: I kind of think your mom was a genius. I’m not sure every mom would have come up with that solution! What’s your favorite genre? To read? To create? 

NICO: I have really varied tastes in fiction, but I definitely lean most towards stories with magic and romance. For a while I was on an urban fantasy kick and read almost nothing else (which is why I started writing it). Now I'm reading a lot more epic and secondary world fantasy and really loving writing it. I'm also enjoying a lot of romance, of course, but I still really want that fantastic element.

JEN: Who is your favorite author? Who's your biggest influence?

NICO: I don’t think I’ll ever be able to choose a favorite anything, but as for influences, Charles de Lint and Holly Black are probably some of the biggest where urban fantasy is concerned (though my books have a lot more spice!). For epic fantasy, Tolkien, of course, but also Ursula le Guin, Robin McKinley, Jane Yolen, and I don’t know how many others! Kellen Graves and a handful of other non-binary and trans writers had a big influence on me choosing to start exploring queer fiction (my urban fantasy series had bi characters, but a MF romance, while my more recent books have MM romance and non-binary characters), which ultimately led to me coming out as non-binary myself.

As for art, I think it’s obvious from my Three Realms covers that I love Mucha and other Art Nouveau artists, as well as William Morris and others in the Arts & Crafts movement, and of course Arthur Rackham. For contemporary artists, there are so many, but you can check out who I follow on social media for some names.

JEN: I’ve long been obsessed with Art Nouveau. It’s so fluid and organic but still extravagant. Your designs are gorgeous.

What other creators are you friends with, and how do they help you create better?

NICO: I have lots of mutuals on social media whose work inspires me to keep exploring and keep trying to improve, but I’m not sure I can call any of them friends. I have social anxiety, so I always feel like referring to someone as a friend unless they’ve said I'm their friend first is overstepping somehow. It’s silly, I know (but hey, if you want to be friends, I’m game!).

JEN: Oh, we’re friends now! We can never have too many friends in this indie space.

What sort of themes do you most enjoy tackling in your work?

NICO: I don’t really think about themes while I write, except maybe finding the magic in everyday life, but once I start reading over what I’ve got, I do find a lot of the same things coming up. Finding strength in the things that might make you seem weird to other people is a big one, seeing beauty everywhere (but especially in the natural world), being true to yourself and finding your chosen family--those are things that came up over and over right from my earliest stories. Lately, I’ve found themes of anti-colonialism, environmentalism, and social justice are popping up, not in a way that bashes the reader over the head, I hope, but lurking under the surface. I’ve also been exploring spirituality in a non-religious way, if that makes sense, and of course themes relevant to the queer community.

JEN: Queer and spiritual — that’s actually my tagline. See? Of course we’re friends!

What does your routine look like? Describe a typical day creating. 

NICO: I get up and make a strong cup of coffee and check my email and social media while I drink it. Then I switch to tea and head downstairs to my art studio/writing cave and get to work on whatever is most pressing that day. Currently, I’m working on my series bible for Three Realms, and editing book three. I also check to see if I have any events or promos that need my attention (I’m really bad at marketing still, but I’m trying to get better). At some point, I’ll realize I’m hungry and go eat lunch. I switch to decaf or green tea at this point, because otherwise I’ll be awake all night staring at the ceiling and the next day I’ll be a basket case. If I’m in the drafting phase, I’ll work on that any time between lunch and lights out. When my partner gets home, we make and eat dinner, and then I’ll either relax with him or go back to work, depending on if anything is pressing. I usually go to bed relatively early for a night person, but I always read for an hour or two before falling asleep.

JEN: In what ways does creating energize or exhaust you?

NICO: Creating is definitely energizing for my imagination, and every story I write or picture I draw makes me want to do another and another and another. I’m old enough, though, that sometimes it can be physically tiring, so I have to make sure I remember to take breaks. I find it much more tiring, though, to go to my day job, even though I love it. A six-hour shift in the gallery is far more exhausting that twice that time spent creating.

JEN: Where do you get the ideas for your creations? What inspires you?

NICO: Ideas are everywhere for me. Nature is a huge inspiration, and looking at art, and reading, but sometimes the most innocuous thing can be the impetus for a story or a painting. I was once watching the news and there was a story about a sea lion swimming up to someone’s boat, and the in the video they showed there was a brief moment where the sea lion’s fin looked like a human hand reaching for the side of the boat (it really didn’t, but that’s how my weird brain interpreted it). That one brief image gave me the idea for a novel (I never did finish that one, but that’s a whole other story). I’ve really never understood the question “where do you get your ideas?” because I have so many filling my brain and more just keep appearing everywhere. The problem for me is figuring out which ideas are the good ones, and over the years I’ve realized that I can file the ideas away, maybe jotting them down in a notebook first, then forgetting about them. They rattle around in my brain and stick to other ideas and eventually the characters start making themselves known. When it gets to the point that the characters won’t shut up, it’s time to start writing.

JEN: This is so real! Tell me, where are you from?

NICO: I was born on Vancouver Island on the west coast of Canada, and I live here now (though not in the same city), but I’ve lived all over North America. My dad was in the Royal Canadian Navy, so we moved a lot, to Victoria, Halifax, Toronto, and Ottawa, and even Virginia Beach. I also went to university in several places, including Calgary, St John’s, and Halifax (and a six-week course in New Paltz, New York), and spent two summers working in a tiny town in the Yukon. Vancouver Island is home, though, and its incredible natural beauty definitely inspires both my writing and my art. Oddly enough, my Fictive Kin stories and spin-offs are set in an imaginary real-world location somewhere in the northeast US or southeast Canada (though not quite as far east as the coast). I think that having moved a lot and experienced a lot of different climates and ecosystems has had a huge effect on my worldbuilding, because it made me pay attention to how the landscape changes. I recently went on a road trip through the Rocky Mountains and was really struck by how even short distances can create completely different landscapes depending on elevation and which side of a mountain you happen to be on. It was really inspiring, so I absolutely recommend road trips if you want to start thinking about worldbuilding in depth.

In grade 10, I had an English teacher who always encouraged me to read and write. Once, after doing a government writing assessment exercise (we seem to have a lot of those in Canada, or we did when I was in school), he asked if he could read mine. I remember how he sat on the edge of my desk, reading, then quietly handed it back and looked at me and said, “I think you should continue with your writing.” So even though I will probably always struggle with feeling inadequate, I have that little event to remember. It shows, I think, how much a good teacher can make a difference. That same year, I had an art teacher (who I had thought didn’t even like me, though he was a good teacher) recommend I attend an out-of-district high school because the art teacher there was really good, and the school was very arts-focused. He thought my work was good enough to encourage!

JEN: My day job is as a teacher. I certainly hope my students know I support them like that!

What do you do for fun when you’re not creating?

NICO: I walk a lot and go camping (though we have a truck camper, so we’re not roughing it). I putter around with embroidery and textile arts (mostly crewel and surface embroidery, and I’m trying to learn spinning and weaving). Between writing and drawing, though, I don’t have a lot of spare time. I also have a part-time day job as a custom picture framer in a small local art gallery. I love it, but I’d give it up in a heartbeat if I could make up the income writing and making my own art. I mentioned my custom picture framing day job, which means I look at a lot of art and that’s a wonderful source of inspiration itself. I’ve also gone back to school way too many times and ended up with four degrees (BA in archaeology, MA in folklore, BFA in writing, and BFA in visual art), all of which inform my art and writing in one way or another (of the four, though, the folklore degree has been the most useful for both art and writing).

JEN: Share some advice for aspiring creators in your field. (Other than “stay in school”, which we know you’d endorse. [laughs at her own lame joke]) What advice would you give to your younger self?

NICO: Write (and draw) what you love. Create for yourself first and don’t think about what other people will think. Or, in the words of one of my writing profs, "write what haunts you." Get in the habit of finishing things. Try writing a whole story in one session or taking a sketch all the way to a finished drawing. Keep going and finish that longer work, even if you've come up with a shiny new idea. Inspiration is much more likely to come if you're already sitting in the chair, working. Make it easy to sit down and work, whether it's writing or art. Have your current project already up on the screen or laid out on the table, so all you have to do is touch the keyboard or pick up the pencil. Starting is the hardest part. And don't be precious; it doesn't have to be perfect to be worth doing. I write longhand in cheap notebooks because it keeps me from trying to be perfect the first time through. If you’re a writer or artist: the world needs your work. If you’re a reader or art lover: writers and artists need you!

JEN: “Write what haunts you.” That might become my new mantra.

Thank you so much for doing this, Nico. What's coming next?

NICO: The third book in Three Realms (A Caress of Water) is currently going though edits (and getting its illustrations). I’ve also got a short story that goes into detail about an off-screen event in that book--it’s written, but I still need to transcribe it from longhand to typed and edit. I've always got a bunch of other stories percolating in my brain, waiting for their turn, which currently includes the next (maybe final) in Fictive Kin, the second in the Wolves of Autumn duology, and something that may end up as a sequel to Heart of Outcasts (even though it was supposed to be a standalone). Book four in Three Realms will probably be the next one I write, and there are at least two spin-off novels (one with side characters from book three and one set several hundred years later in a sort of Gaslamp setting) and a short story lurking, too. Oh, and I’m planning to write a short story spin-off from Waking Pan, featuring a character who is mentioned but only seen very briefly at the end.

JEN: My hearts, please do seek out Nico Silver’s books. A Caress of Water (Three Realms, Nine Monarchs: Book 3) will be available tomorrow, Dec. 21—treat yourself to a winter solstice gift! You can also find them on Threads, Instagram and TikTok, and on BlueSky, and on their website.