Nikita Nelin is the offspring of a cosmonaut and a therapist, and though he did study psychology, he has never tried to escape the earth, except through his writing. Nikita was born in Russia and immigrated to the U.S in 1989. He has lived in Austria and Italy, and has traveled the U.S extensively. His work often takes on a borderless perspective, exploring contemporary culture from the fringe through his journalism, and the nature of lineage and likeness between difference through his fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction.
He has received the Sean O’Faolain Prize for short fiction, the Summer Literary Seminars Prize for nonfiction, and the Dogwood Nonfiction Prize. He memoir, The Fifth Season, was chosen as a finalist for the 2017 Restless Books Immigrant Prize as well as the 2018 Dzanc Nonfiction Prize. He holds an MFA from Brooklyn College and is a 2019 associate fellow at the Hannah Arendt Center. If you wish to support his work you can find him at Nikitanelin.com and through Patreon.