JOHN NICHOLS, Iconic N.M. Author, discussing  his New Autobiography “I Got Mine”

“Here, in all their convoluted details, are my adventures while I'm publishing books and working on Hollywood screenplays over the last six decades. I had lots of fun even when the pooh-bahs in charge cut out my heart and ate it while it was still beating. In the end, I've had the last laugh, and maybe you will too.” --- John Nichols, re: his recent autobiography “I Got Mine: Confessions of a Midlist Writer”

Sept. 8, 2022 -- This week’s guest on REPORT FROM SANTA FE is iconic New Mexico author John Nichols, author of such fiction works as "The Milagro Beanfield War" and such non-fiction works as "If Mountains Die."

Nichols is the author of the "New Mexico trilogy," a series about the complex relationship among history, race and ethnicity, and land and water rights in the fictional town of Chamisaville, New Mexico. The trilogy consists of The Milagro Beanfield War (which was adapted into a movie of the same name, directed by Robert Redford), The Magic Journey, and The Nirvana Blues.

Two of his other novels have been made into films. The Wizard of Loneliness was published in 1966, and the film version was made in 1988. Another movie adaptation was of The Sterile Cuckoo, published in 1965 and adapted for film in 1969. He also had a hand in the Oscar-winning Best Adapted Screenplay for Costa-Gavras' 1982 film Missing.

Nichols writes non-fiction as well, including the trilogy If Mountains Die, The Last Beautiful Days of Autumn and On the Mesa. Nichols is also a photographer, with many of his photographs appearing in his book On the Mesa, among others. Nichols has lived in Taos, NM for many years. He is long-time political activist for progressive and especially environmental causes.