Nathan Nicolau's Blog, page 4

Dear Chancellor Brian Cole...

Whenever you get a chance, go to UNCSA School of Filmmaking’s film village alone. Walk into Main Theater and take any seat. I prefer the middle towards the back because you can hear more clearly. Now, imagine a room full of students. They could be there for a required meeting, a class, or a weekend screening. Before the lights go off, imagine students’ voices all around you talking about a variety of things: how Crew was awful last weekend or how they can’t wait to eat at the Pickle Jar after class. But then you begin to hear the one thing that UNCSA is famous for: gossip. And it travels fast in a small school like this.

Imagine—for days, weeks, months, and even years—hearing story after story about other classmates, some you were very close with and some that you had only said probably six words to. By the end of a few weeks, you felt as though you’ve heard everyone’s dirty laundry, but it just keeps piling up. Some of it was harmless, like a funny story about a classmate throwing up in a Waffle House bathroom after a night of drinking. However, many were gravely serious, and I think you know what I’m alluding to.

If Main Theater’s walls could talk, they would give you nightmares. They would disgust you and make you question everything a college institution stood for. If Main Theater’s walls could talk, you would not have remarked that UNCSA has changed its tune about sexual assault since the 80s and 90s in a public announcement. From 2014 to 2018, I heard horror stories in Main Theater. I can assure you that nothing has changed, and I am bewildered that you would make such a comment.

I know that your stance did not come from blissful ignorance. You were the dean of the music school in 2016 when I was in my 2nd year. 2017 saw the birth of the #MeToo movement, one that I am sure you kept an eye on, as did the rest of campus. And you can tell UNCSA tried to care, hosting entire workshops, lectures, and “dialogues” on power dynamics in the art/entertainment industry. I am not sure if you have read my initial response to the lawsuit, but there is a typical pattern that the school does: acknowledge an ongoing issue in broad strokes, beat students over the head with “we hear you,” and then dust your hands off as if you contributed greatly. This is not action; this is virtue signaling, a common problem in art conservatories and the art industry. If UNCSA wishes to be “more than an art school,” then the first thing you can do as chancellor is simply admit that the school has problems; ones that I know you are aware of but won’t divulge when money, resources, and careers are on the line. Please swallow your pride. Ask yourself if the money, resources, and careers are worth the damaging repercussions from this lawsuit. If you love this school as you claim you do, then this should be common sense. Acknowledging faults is part of appreciating something and instilling change. Artists have to be on the cutting edge. Why can’t an arts conservatory be?

Here is what we have in common: we both love the idea of UNCSA. A professional, accredited arts conservatory that encourages artistic freedom is a dream come true for artists like me. But you cannot push this sunshine and rainbows narrative anymore. Look where it has landed you and the school. Look where it has landed me. The constant lying, abuse, and toxicity made me quit filmmaking, a dream I’d had since I was a kid. In other words, UNCSA crushed my dreams. But the school also made me a better person. I met wonderful people, and I became a more empathetic, mature person after I graduated. These were not for the right reasons, however. I had to be mature because everyone around me wasn’t. The lack of accountability and respect in both faculty and students was appalling, and I have been very frank in telling people about it, as you can tell.

Since I graduated in 2018, I’ve been keeping UNCSA behind me. I get embarrassed, ashamed even, to even mention I went there. I know this is not the reputation you want, and believe me when I say that there are many who feel the way I do. Since my initial blog post, many past, present, and future alumni have contacted me in support. I am not disgruntled. I am not vengeful. I want to make UNCSA a great place as much as you do, but making sweeping “we’ve changed” comments is irresponsible, damaging, and an outright lie.

So, before you make any further statements as this lawsuit unfolds, go to Main Theater as I did. In fact, I’m sure students are in there right now sharing more grievances. If you aren’t going to listen to students, at least lend an ear to the walls.

So Quiet This Wind 2nd edition out now!

The response to my haiku collection, So Quiet This Wind, has been polarizing. I expected as such considering how my aim was to break what most people think is the only convention of haiku: 5-7-5 syllables.

In response to these criticisms and praises, I am proud to release the 2nd edition of the book. You can buy the new edition over at the book's official Amazon page.

This edition has a brand new preface which addresses some of the criticisms towards the book. There is also an expanded introduction that explains the technical aspects of haiku, the form's convention beyond the 5-7-5 rule, and a brief note on the difference between a syllabic language like Japanese and a alphabetic language like English.

Another change in this edition is a reformat of the haikus to make the book slimmer and easier to read.

My hope with So Quiet This Wind is to continuously update it with new haikus and new ways to show what new things we can do with the form. I took this mentality from the great poet Walt Whitman, who continuously released new editions to his only book Leaves of Grass. I hope everyone enjoys this first update, and here's to many more!

My response to the UNCSA lawsuit as an alumnus.

When a class-action lawsuit was filed against my alma mater—the University of North Carolina School of the Arts—concerning negligence towards campus sexual assaults, my initial reaction was, “It’s about time.”

And I was not alone in that sentiment. Fellow alumni cheered, and floods of support came in from non-alumni and even those who dropped out. It felt like we won a long battle because, in a sense, we did. After years of UNCSA brushing off students’ concerns, the big guns were pulled out, and now all the school can do is admit to their wrongdoings.

I attended UNCSA from 2014 to 2018, graduating with a degree in filmmaking. During campus tours and my first semester, the school presented itself as one big happy family in a true artist’s utopia. Big happy family it was not, but it was indeed an artist’s utopia in a sense the school did not recognize. Artists, much like anyone else, are flawed people. I would even argue they are more flawed than most. Art takes a lot of trial and error, a lot of perseverance, and a lot of failures. All these can severely affect someone mentally. Every student I met (including me) had some kind of mental health issue with all the pressure the school put on us. In essence, we were all flawed people, but how we dealt with these flaws showed our character and growth.

However, with all this pressure came insecurity, entitlement, and egotism, which I saw all four years at UNCSA. I saw complete acts of depravity during my time: death threats, verbal/physical abuse, manipulation, labor exploitation, and the most significant problem the school does not want to confront: sexual harassment/assault.

Hearing stories of sexual assault, sadly, was the norm. And despite all the Title IX reports, it seemed like we were screaming into deaf ears. Abusers still walked into classes with their victims. Teachers with long histories of sexual harassment cases still got their paychecks. What was the point of alerting the school anymore? Despite near routine reminders of “We hear you and support you” from the school, there always seemed to be a catch with it. “We hear you...unless money is involved” was more like it. This class-action lawsuit certainly perked their ears up, and while I am glad it is happening now, these false promises of “hearing us” are gone once the school denies all the allegations in court.

Thankfully, I was never sexually assaulted during my time at UNCSA. Nor did I (nor would I) sexually assault someone. Throughout my entire time in school, I was in a healthy relationship with my girlfriend (now my wife). This did not mean I ignored the alarming amount of sexual harassment and the school’s abhorrent treatment towards it. During an all-school meeting right in the wake of #MeToo, the Title IX office had to, once again, pull the “we hear you” card. One female student had enough. She screamed from her seat, sobbing, shaking with every word, about how the office had ignored her case with no updates, how the office dared to suggest her case was false, how no police action was taken, how her abuser still walked around campus and in her classes. To this day, I can still hear her shrieking voice echoing around the whole auditorium.

And the office’s response was, essentially, “Sorry you feel that way.”

From that moment on, I seriously wondered how could any school, any person for that matter, treat a grave issue that way? Why all the secrecy and red tape? We were all told this school was an artist’s haven, so was it the university as a whole, or just bad apples? Then, the School of Filmmaking’s Assistant Head of Production at the time once quipped to me under a muttered breath that one lawsuit could tank the entire film school. That was when all the pieces fit together: money was the bottom line. Money was the reason so many issues I saw ran rampant and never seemed to stop.

I pray for two outcomes from this lawsuit: that those treated horribly from the school receive justice and that this opens up deeper, much-needed investigations into the school. Sexual assault, I am sad to say, is only the beginning when it comes to the issues UNCSA has, as I had noted earlier.

A university is a business like any other, I have learned. Since graduating, I am now a college professor myself. I have made it my duty not to succumb to a university’s dogmatic politics, given my prior experiences. I still hold to the idea that, above all, a university is an institution with a duty to educate and serve, not to profit. I ask UNCSA to reconsider its values as this situation unfolds.

Featured in "Of Earth and Sky" art installation in Charlotte, NC

A high accomplishment for a writer is not just having your work published in a book or magazine, but to have it out there in the world as part of a city’s culture.

I achieved this with my poem "The Patio Outside My World" as featured in Blumenthal Art's Of Earth and Sky installation, designed by noted UK artist Luke Jerram. The installation takes hundreds of poems by local poets and and lays them out artistically all across Charlotte, NC, creating a unique poetry walk. You can find my poem as a poster behind glass over at The Jazz Room facing 5th street.

I thank Blumenthal for giving me this special opportunity. I'm a huge fan of conceptual art, and I've had a lot of fun walking around Charlotte finding all these great pieces from amazing poets. This has been a huge step in my career as a writer, especially as one representing the Charlotte area.

Featured in Beyond Words Literary Magazine, Sept. 2021 edition

I am proud to have a new poem, "Our Beholders," featured in Beyond Words, an international literary magazine. The poem was inspired by a discussion I had about Eco-studies in a graduate class I had at UNC-Charlotte. The poem was also inspired by the writings of Val Plumwood, who championed writers to write about nature in an active voice. "Our Beholders" is my response to three different ways nature reveals itself to us, rather than the other way around.

Buy a physical copy here or a digital copy here.

Announcing "Vantage Points"

I am excited to announce my newest book: a collection of flash fiction stories entitled Vantage Points. ,The book will come out August 30th, with pre-orders going live now! Here's the blurb:

"What does it mean to be human in the eyes of others?

From acclaimed writer Nathan Nicolau comes Vantage Points, a flash-fiction collection about perception. Each story focuses on how a character sees the world, sees others, or how they see themselves. The stories in this collection explore different aspects of the human condition—the positives, the negatives, and even the ugly—but reframes them through the eyes of unique characters, all in 1,000 words or less.

Dive into the mind of a man who loves fast food more than his children or a woman who sees her relationship in a painting. Hear the sardonic ramblings of a dead man or see the cold procedure of a gun owner. We all have a story to tell, but it depends on what our viewpoint is."

This collection has been in the works for over a year, and I am excited to share it with you all. Two of the stories in this collection have been previously published: "Who Isn't Jesus in Texas?" and "Branding."

I have been in love with flash fiction since I first read selections from Yasunari Kawabata's Palm of the Hand Stories and John Edgar Wideman's Briefs. The stories in Vantage Points continue flash fiction's long-standing goal: to make every word count in telling an impactful story. I hope that audiences will enjoy the concise, poetic quality of these stories.

Featured in North Carolina Poetry Anthology

Read my poem "Mindfulness" in Local Gem Press's North Carolina Bards Poetry Anthology 2021. The anthology, which features many other wonderful North Carolina poets, is out now on Amazon. "Mindfulness" was inspired by my Buddhist beliefs and my new found connection with nature. This is my first time being in an anthology, and I am most thankful for this opportunity.

ANNOUNCEMENT - The Gospel Accordingly (Coming May 28th)

I'm excited to announce my latest project: The Gospel Accordingly, a music collaboration with Brenden Sica released through Noise Jazz Records on May 28th.

The Gospel Accordingly is an album of original poetry set to original electronic compositions. The poems, along with their musical accompaniment, capture the anxieties and absurdities of current America. In a similar vein as T. S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" and Allen Ginsburg's "Howl," this sobering album examines the state of America today in a unique voice and soundscape.

This is my first album and first collaborative project as a professional writer. I am very proud of this album and the work Brenden and I have accomplished.

Available at Park Road Books

Park Road Books has been serving the Charlotte community since 1977. No other book store in Charlotte is as committed to supporting local authors, which is why I am honored to announce that ALL of my books are now available at there!

This is a big step for me as this is the first time my work will be in a bookstore for purchase. To express my gratitude, I signed ALL the copies I gave to Park Road Books. If you're looking for a one-of-a-kind copy of my work, this is where you go!

I am beyond grateful to the Park Road Books' staff for this opportunity. I hope this is the first of many for me. Please support local by buying local and visit Park Road Books today!

Here's a great article on what Park Road Books is like. I have shopped with them before, and I agree with everything in it!

ANNOUNCEMENT - So Quiet This Wind: Haiku

I am very excited to announce my next poetry collection: So Quiet this Wind, an original haiku book.

Why say it in 10 words when you can say it in 5? That has been my personal philosophy when it comes to writing. Haiku captures this better than any other poetic form. Haiku demands a writer to distill thoughts, emotions, and themes into three small lines. The haiku in my collection does not subscribe to the 5-7-5 syllable form, as that is a Japanese-only convention. Instead, my aim with this collection is to embrace the true essence of haiku conventions. These include referencing a season, having a "cutting word" (a punctuation mark in English), removing personal pronouns, and juxtaposing two observations while subtly linking them thematically.

Here's a sneak peek of the cover art:

Mark your calendars! So Quiet This Wind will be out on March 12th.