Chase the muse with me.
Books by Renée
Welcome to my collection of published works, each rooted in a fascination with the human capacity to overcome obstacles, representing my commitment to the power of creative expression in understanding our most vulnerable human experiences.
Feverdream
Poems
Forthcoming 2026
Postscripts
Poems
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Memoir-in-Essays
Bodies of Truth: Personal Narratives of Illness, Disability, and Medicine
Anthology edited by Dinty W. Moore, Erin Murphy, and Renée K. Nicholson
Poems by Renée K. Nicholson
Art by Sally Jane Brown
Roundabout Directions to Lincoln Center
Poems
Gary Ciocco, Pittsburgh Post Gazette on Postscripts
Nicholson’s new poetry collection, Postscripts, is a kind of travelog, one which captures not just the vicissitudes, vagaries and vital signs of various places and cultures, but remains rooted in the wilds of West Virginia and also grounded in grief, at the loss of her brother to cancer.
Dinty W. Moore, author of Between Panic and Desire on Fierce and Delicate
Renée Nicholson writes with the grace, determination, and, yes, fierceness needed to succeed in the world of professional dance, so it is no surprise that Fierce and Delicate is such a remarkable and en pointe memoir-in-essays, as breathtaking and beautiful as ballet itself. Nicholson’s voice blends absolute honesty with a lovely, lyrical descriptive style, and each essay is a pure pleasure to read. Bravo!
Library Journal on Fierce and Delicate
An elegant collection of essays from a dancer’s soul that will uplift all readers, especially those who love dance.
Renée E. D’Aoust, author of Body of a Dancer on Fierce and Delicate
Many dancers wrestle with one of the central questions of Renée Nicholson’s fabulous book: How does one live as an ex-dancer? The answers Nicholson explores will strongly resonate with those who long to lift the veil that shrouds creative pursuits in unnecessary mystique. I love Nicholson’s powerful prose: how the essays circle in and out of dance, the way movement comes alive on the page, and the articulate grace with which Nicholson writes about sudden disability. In Fierce and Delicate, Nicholson teaches us how to envelop our impossible dreams with gratitude for the life we have now.
Buzzfeed on Fierce and Delicate
Nicholson’s previous experience as a poet is evident in this lyrical and fascinating memoir about reinventing one’s body and purpose.
Jake Maynard, Los Angeles Review on Roundabout Directions to Lincoln Center
These poems overflow with funny, biting lines that strike straight to the throat of a subject.