Hi! And welcome to my website.

I’m Nicki Chen, an author and blogger from Edmonds, Washington. I’m a small-town girl who met and married a Chinese immigrant, an engineer who found his first full-time job in my hometown. It was his tales about his early childhood in China that were the inspiration for my first novel: Tiger Tail Soup.

My second novel, When in Vanuatu, was influenced by the time we spent abroad. Our expatriate years began when Eugene took a job with the Asian Development Bank. At the time, our third daughter was just three-weeks old. As an expat, I served on the Manila International School Board and volunteered at the coop nursery school our daughters attended. I studied Chinese brush painting and batik painting, volunteered with the women’s club and the church, and made friends from all over the world. By the time we returned to the US, all three daughters had graduated from college.

My interest in writing fiction began gradually. I took a correspondence course from the Children’s Institute of Literature; I wrote in my journal; I tried my hand at writing short stories. Eventually I applied for a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at Vermont College of Fine Arts. It was one of only a few low-residency courses at the time. But it was half a world away. We were living in the South Pacific by then, in Vanuatu. It was a very long commute, but twice a year I flew to Vermont and back. And I did graduate.

Beauty, especially in the natural environment, has always been important to me. I grew up in western Washington State surrounded by green fields with snowcapped mountains on two sides and a river rushing by on its way to Puget Sound. My family camped in the forest, hiked to waterfalls, and cruised among the San Juan Islands. And always my mom was there, pointing out the beauty and encouraging me to sketch it. Later I began to “sketch” with words, saving my experiences and the natural beauty I saw like flowers pressed between the pages of a book. When we lived in the Philippines and the South Pacific, I was equally inspired by the beaches, islands, turquoise water, flowers and trees there.

I’m back in Washington State now, in the lovely little seaside city of Edmonds. I’m happy to be living again between the familiar snow-capped mountains of the Northwest and beside the Salish Sea. When I’m not writing, I’m within easy reach of a hilly walk or a ferry ride to the Olympic Peninsula. My husband passed away, but my sister, one daughter, and two of my grown grandchildren live nearby. My other daughters and their families live on the other side of the country, giving us all a good excuse for travel.