M.A. Nichols

I have five brothers and sisters, along with five siblings-in-law and twenty-two nieces and nephews. Generally speaking, I'm the favorite aunt, but that's mostly due to the fact that a child's affection can be easily bought with enough candy. I tend towards the pack-them-full-of-sugar-and-let-them-detox-on-their-parents' school of thought.

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I’m 6’2”. I get this question a lot from people who meet me in person, so I thought I’d just put it out there. No, I don’t mind people asking me my height, but keep in mind that being tall does not mean good at basketball. No, I don’t notice it all that much; I've always been taller than everyone my age. No, I don’t wear high heels, but that has more to do with my propensity to fall on my face than caring about being a few more inches taller than everyone else. When you’re already a head taller than most people, what do a few more inches matter?

 

If you didn’t put two and two together by seeing that I went to BYU for school, I’ll just spell it out. I’m a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It’s a huge part of who I am and I guess it somewhat plays a part in my writing because an author's values and morals always seep into whatever they write, but I don’t specifically put religion in my books.

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I’m ashamed to admit it, but my favorite food is probably macaroni and cheese, whether it's Kraft or the fancy, homemade stuff. I may be an adult, but I’ve never grown out of my love of that blue box of goodness. As a kid, I told my mother that when I grew up I would eat mac and cheese every day. She told me I’d get bored with it. I haven’t.

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My favorite drink is anything by Hawaiian Sun. My family’s favorite vacation spot was Maui and we always ended up drinking those juices by the crate. To this day, if we go down there as a family, my mom has a strict two cans a day limit.

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I’m not a cat or dog person. I’m not a pet person, period. I swear that whenever I tell people that they tend to look at me like I’m on par with serial killers or something. I’m just not a fan. Dogs have all the downsides of a toddler (you have to clean up their poop, bath them, feed them, they whine, etc.), but they never grow out of it. Getting licked on my face by a tongue that has licked unmentionable things isn’t exactly my idea of a reward for all that work. And not only am I allergic to cats, but I don’t care for the condescending way they look at me. You’re a cat! What makes you better than me?!

 

I still have a full-time job, though I hope that'll change sometime in the future (hint, hint...buy my books, please!). I'm a transportation planner with the Alaska Department of Transportation. Basically, that means I use the magic powers I developed in grad school to look into the future in order to anticipate how the State needs to expand its transportation system to fit the growing needs of Alaska. It also means I spend a lot of time dealing with public relations for the DOT. And in case you were wondering, the TV show Parks and Recreation does a fairly accurate job of portraying what it's like to work in the public sector. Especially when dealing with public involvement meetings.