Author Spotlight: Nicholas Checker

Nicholas Checker has written independent films shown in cinemas and film festivals across the country. Shedim – an eerie supernatural piece premiered at Niantic Cinemas and followed with impressive festival appearances that included Yale University and the Channel Island Film Fest in Los Angeles. The Snowman was next, followed by Radio Rage, Checker’s 2004 stab at hate radio talk shows, which also made a solid festival trek. Checker’s background includes a published one-act play, Kangaroo Court (Eldridge Publishing) – a dark satire where animals put humans on trial. It saw productions throughout the country, and in 2023 won a Best High School Production in the state of Texas. He also wrote a highly lauded historical play on the Pequot War, Elegy for an Icon, that premiered at the Local Playwrights’ Festival at the Eugene O’Neill Theater in Waterford, CT. Another of Checker’s stage plays, Run To Elysia – with music by songwriter Rick Spencer of Mystic, CT – premiered at the O’Neill Theater. It tells the legendary tale of the fabled Greek runner Pheidippides and his heroics. It was recently resurrected and produced successfully again in 2018 at Stonington High school.

In 2005 Checker wrote & directed Trashed – a blend of documentary & drama regarding eminent domain and homelessness. It had major festival screenings in Connecticut and New York. A screening at the Garde Arts Center in New London, CT was sponsored by the Washington DC based Institute For Justice that defended plaintiffs in the heated 2005 US Supreme Court case, Kelo vs New London. Checker also wrote the screenplay for a film based on an old historic legend, The Curse Of Micah Rood, starring the late Ron Palillo (formerly of the Welcome Back Kotter TV series). The film, directed by Alec Asten of Firesite Films, won a number of Best Film awards at numerous festivals. Checker credits his learning the craft of writing-for-film to Hollywood screenwriter Peter Filardi and Filardi’s brother Jason – both successful writers who still assist Checker in evaluating his new works.

Scratch was Checker’s first published novel, and Druids his second (Oak Tree Press). He considers both works of extreme importance:Scratch for what it conveys regarding animal and human relations, and Druids for what it has to say regarding people deemed “outside the norm.” His two most recent novels were published by a traditional house, Wild Rose Press of New York:The Saga of Marathon – adapted successfully from his stage play, Run to Elysia, more fully capturing the Greek foot courier racing on a mission to save the world’s first democracy;and The Legend of Kwi Coast – a young adult, heroic tale of a defiant young dolphin defying the mores of her strangely militant clan.

Checker’s short story, Prize Head – an eerie tale of a café owner’s fascination with a stuffed moose head on the back wall of his bar – was published in Shenandoah Magazine – Washington & Lee University Literary Journal. In addition, Nicholas Checker also wrote feature stories for The Day newspaper’s TIMES editions 2022, and he was awarded an Artists Respond Grant by the State of Connecticut to adapt his original stage play, Elegy for an Icon, into a solo-performer piece, still being presented!

I have been writing for the better part of my life, due to having been an avid reader — greatly encouraged by my mother and some of the better teachers I had in elementary school, junior high, high school, and later in college (University of Connecticut, where I graduated with a BFA degree in Theatre and English). For many years afterwards I was heavily involved in the performing arts, coaching gymnastics, running (including Marine Corps and New York Marathons), mountain biking, along with writing and seeing produced successful stage plays and independent films. I am always in a state of motion and constantly creating, adopting rescue cats and taking care of outdoor feral ones too; animals and nature are powerful passions of mine.

My passion for reading led me into writing, as stories habitually came to me, fairly begging to be told. Great classic writers like Kipling, Hemingway, Tolkien, Clavell, Stevenson, London, Dickens – the list is endless – and fantasy writers like Michael Moorcock and horror writers like Stephen King also influenced me, as did so many great films and plays. Someone asked me in an interview how I found the stories I write;I answered, “They find me.” There are many genres I like, but it really comes down simply to colorful characters engaged in colorful conflicts. The genre itself doesn’t matter. Tolkien once said, “Just tell a cracking good tale”; German playwright Bertolt Brecht said: “Yes, I want you engaged and entertained…but also thinking about it on the way out of the theater.” While playwright Wendy Wasserstein remarked during one of her seminars:“You’re going to see things and hear things every day that will get you angry;don’t get angry, go home and write!” I cherish these brilliant quips of wisdom from these three all-time greats!

Some of my other literary works include another full-length novel, The Legend of Kwi Coast – a chilling tale of a rebellious young dolphin defying the ways of her strangely militant clan – also published by Wild Rose Press;an E-Book novelette, The Duel – an undersea thriller about a young octopus struggling to rid her cherished reef home of an invasive evil –  published by The Wild Rose Press;Scratch – a harrowing adventure set against the backdrop of feral creatures stalked by an enemy far more dangerous than natural ones, published originally by Oak Tree Press, Hanford, Ca; and Druids — fantasy adventure in a realm menaced by a deranged evil sorcery, also published by Oak Tree Press.  All of these books are readily available via Amazon, where overwhelmingly positive reviews are posted! Another new novel, When the Raven Flies, has just been accepted by The Wild Rose Press for publication … an environmental thriller where ancient woodland spirits rise up in defiance of corrupt humans. It’s the right book with the right message at the right time!

One of Nicholas’s favourite scenes from The Saga of Marathon…

This is an excerpt from my 380 page fable,The Saga of Marathon, a blend of legend, history, and mythology thatdramatizes the heroics of the brave young Greek foot-courier who raced valiantly from the Battlefield of Marathon to the city of ancientAthens to help save the world’s very first democracy from a delusional dictator. It is a tale where one person does indeed make a difference; in this case a quiet, reclusive teenager of the lower Athenian caste, who rises to legendary prominence through love of his city.

         A distant chorus of heavy cheers disrupted his thoughts and Pheidippides forced himself to his feet to see what had provoked it. He squinted, his light brown eyes straining to see through the muggy haze of the dust-clogged plain. And there it was.

        The Persians were in a full retreat, scores of them lying strewn dead everywhere, their maroon-grey armor all but changing the hue of the ground itself. Those that remained fought fiercely in their retreat. No cowards these invaders, however barbaric their reputation. No cowards, Pheidippides thought to himself. He half-expected that haunting feminine voice to mock him once more.

        Pheidippides wondered where he had found the courage earlier to stab the huge Persian in the hip when the man had been ready to slay his comrade-in-arms, young Kretus. And where now was Kretus in all this cluster of soldiering on this steaming tundra?  Where was his father, the gallant Captain Boros whose exploits this day he was certain had been hardy and brave.

        The young courier turned his head away from the battlefield and toward the Aegean waters. And he gasped. This was not possible! But yes, his mind and eyesight could not be so mottled.

        For there were the dark, square-shaped sails that had been described to him so many times by those who knew them … all sailing south. His heart leaped with joy and relief. They had beaten Darius’ dread legions! The Persians were heading … south.

        It took but seconds for the truth to creep over him. In spite of the blistering heat, a sudden chill bit into the young Athenian boy. The Persian fleet was not sailing for home, north.