Meet the Frond team: Nic

What do you read for?

I read to be faced directly with the void: to be broken open unforgivingly, to feel the far reaches of what language will never be able to accomplish, to pour myself into the cracks, to be unable to reassemble myself the same way on the other side. I read to know that other people also find the crushing weight of being alive unbearable, and yet live, and I take note.

Who are a few people who have influenced you as a writer, reader, and organizer in your literary space?

There are so many influences I feel compelled to admit I may not be an individual at all, but more an amorphous mass of the people and writers and books I have loved. For my identity as a writer and publisher I am grateful to publishers of beautiful small books, like Ferno House and Desert Pets Press, and to geniuses who would not un-genius themselves for their books, like Eimear McBride and David Foster Wallace. The list is endless once I start thinking about it but for now—

in this wild new stretch of being alive I am grateful to Terrence Abrahams, for how intently and beautifully he engages and reflects the worlds he inhabits, for the care he places into all things, however small; to Jay and Hazel Millar, for their relentless work at Book*Hug but also for their honesty, their forthrightness, their tastes, their soft-edged boldness in making their home a home for their readers, for their writers, for us; to Jasmine Gui, for her dedication to beauty, in all senses, in every careful creation, for her sharp and persistent energy as a community-builder, educator, and creator. I have been in a frenzy of wanting to become, and these people have inspired me to be.

Why is Frond important to you?

Ach, well. Writing saves my life over and over again—reading it, mostly, but also writing it, finding connections because of it. I have always wanted to make a home for the weird shit, because that’s where I find home; it’s where I have found myself. And as it turns out, I’m gay, and you better believe I arrived at that realization in no small part by reading queer stories from queer writers. So, here: a home for the weird shit, for the weird queers, because it is these things that keep me alive.