I Got Mine: Confessions of a Midlist Writer - Paperback

by John Nichols (Author)

I Got Mine: Confessions of a Midlist Writer is the memoir of Nichols' extraordinary life, as seen through the lens of his writing. Everything that went into making him a writer and eventually found an outlet in his work--his education, family, wives, children, friends, enemies, politics, and place--is told from the point of view of his daily practice of writing.

Beginning with his first novel, The Sterile Cuckoo, published in 1965 when he was just twenty-four, Nichols shares his highs and lows: his ambivalent relationship with money; his growing disenchantment with the hypocrisy of capitalism; and his love-hate relationship with Hollywood--including the years-long struggle of working with director Robert Redford on the film version of The Milagro Beanfield War, which was filmed around Truchas and featured many of Nichols' northern New Mexico neighbors.

Throughout I Got Mine Nichols spins a shining thread connecting his lifelong engagement with progressive political causes, his passionate interest in and identification with ordinary people, and his deep connection to the land.

Author Biography

At the time of his death in 2023, John Nichols had published eleven works of nonfiction and thirteen novels, including the classic The Milagro Beanfield War. A resident of Taos since the 1960s, his recent works include The Annual Big Arsenic Fishing Contest! A Novel; On Top of Spoon Mountain; and My Heart Belongs to Nature: A Memoir in Photographs and Prose (all from UNM Press).