Borderlines & Belief with writer Elizabeth Nicholas
Thank you for joining us on Friday, September 5 for an evening with Paris-based writer and essayist Elizabeth Nicholas, who presented an essay about the political and spiritual dimensions of her move last year from America to France.
At this month’s MacDowell Downtown, Elizabeth Nicholas held the room in rapt silence as she read from her essay, Losing America, Finding My Soul. With lyrical prose, she recounted leaving behind a spiritually and economically unsustainable New York for the slower, sweeter rhythms of Paris.
“Everyone talks constantly about these conditions and then carries right on participating in them,” she writes. “I was not okay with this, and wanted out.” What follows is a journey of escape and transformation—through cancer, resilience, and a hunger for a more dignified, modern way of life. In Paris, she finds a life “fundamentally decent enough to sincerely metabolize,” where opera glove shops and accessible healthcare exist. “Maybe these impressionistic hits of emotion are a form of speech from God,” she reflects. “And it is okay to never fully make out the words.”
With rousing applause, many in the audience stayed after the presentation to share their own stories of wandering through Paris—each one, like Nicholas’s, a quiet testament to the longing for a more soulful way of living.
To read Nicholas’ essay and discover more of her work visit Nicholas' Stubstack.
Currently in Peterborough for her second MacDowell Fellowship, Elizabeth Nicholas' work has appeared in The New York Times, New York Magazine, Vanity Fair, Vogue, W, and TIME. She was a Global Research Initiative Fellow at NYU’s graduate writing program after earning prior degrees from the University of Edinburgh and Harvard University. While her past writing has been shortlisted and longlisted for the Disquiet Prize, she is currently publishing her work on Substack, where she has posted a wide range of essays—from risk-taking to life as an expat during tumultuous times.