Amaya
Nichole

“Every story I create, creates me. I write to create myself.”

— Octavia E. Butler

Hi, I’m Amaya Nichole.

If you suffer from a short attention span due to the constant influx of information in our modern world and the rapid pace of digital media, here’s who I am in short:

I was born in Atlanta, GA

I was raised in Tampa, FL

I currently live and work in Brooklyn, NY

I love to read

I love to write

I love my family

I was a swimmer my whole life

I earned my B.A. in journalism from Long Island University Brooklyn

I am a generalist journalist, reporting on any and everything

Yes, I am looking for a job, thanks for asking

I am a dog mom of two, Bolt and Petey

I recently received my M.A. in Journalism with a concentration in Magazine and Digital Storytelling from NYU

Now, if you've managed to go against the grain and maintain your attention span, here's who I am in long:

I was born in Atlanta, GA, but was raised in Tampa, FL. Actually, I was born in Henry County, GA, and was raised in Wesley Chapel, FL, but no one knows where either of those are so I usually go for the former. I swam through elementary, middle, high school, and college. Swimming taught me so many important life lessons and I wouldn’t be me without it.

Enough of the was and let’s get into what is.

In book 24 of Barbara Park’s Junie B. Jones’s book series, Junie B., First Grader: Boo… and I MEAN It!, when her thoughts begin to consume her, she realizes, “Only how can you not think about a situation if you’re trying not to think about a situation? I tapped my fingers, very frustrated. Then, all of a sudden, I saw my journal on my desk. And a good idea came in my head. ‘Cause sometimes if you write your problems in a journal, it makes you feel better about things.”

Long before I ever sat in a journalism classroom, it was this line of reasoning that made me realize why I write. Not only to make sense of a world that can feel, at times, too big and too loud to hold inside your head alone—but to ensure that others don't have to either, by taking the overwhelming complexity of the world and translating it into something the public can understand, engage with, and act on.

At this point in my career, I’ve determined that I am a "generalist" writer. From the meaning behind the Blue Origin space launch to trying and ranking 15 matcha specials in NYC, I’m interested in anything and everything.