Author Press Spotlight: Nicole D'Settemi with her release Addictarium (in Paperback!)
- nicolesettemi
- Jan 1, 2019
- 7 min read
Updated: Jan 19, 2019
Author Press Spotlight: Nicole D'Settemi with her release Addictarium (in Paperback!)
§ Tell us a bit about yourself. Where are you from and how long have you been writing?
Hi & thank you for allowing me to participate. I am currently located in Boca Raton, however, I live most of the time per year, with my fiance in the Hudson Valley.
I grew up in Niagara Falls, but relocated at around 16, and have lived in various regions nationally, since.
I have been penning poems from around 6 on, and professionally published my first book in 2016. To date, I have released a full novel, 6 poetry collections, and I am prepping to release a seventh as we speak.
§ Tell us about your latest book. What do you hope readers take away from it?
Addictarium is a story of addiction and recovery, with a backdrop of love and obsession, as well as human suffering, emotional instability, and mental health restoration. It's an exploration and examination of the human condition and human relationships.
§ What’s the most interesting book you’ve ever read?
The most interesting would be Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk. I think that White Oleander is a close second, and Lolita. But, Invisible Monsters is just an absolute masterpiece in bizarro fiction, strictly designed for entertainment. It literally had me by the first few sentences. The hook is incredible.
I think if we’re talking about great prose, Fitch (Oleander) is better, but ‘Monsters is a unique write and endlessly entertaining. I want everybody to read it. It’s a really, really, intriguing, very strange, sadly humorous story. With total hooked-on-it prose, which makes it difficult to stop reading. The design is also unique, very chaotic, which I loved.
§ Book you’re currently reading?
Mirages By Anais Nin, getting ready to start Trapeze by Nin as well.
§ What is your best marketing tip?
FIND your audience and your voice. Whether through social media platforms or otherwise, you need to locate folks who have a real interest in what you're giving them artistically.
§ Do you aim for a set amount of words/pages per day? Also, do you write every day, 5 days a week…?
I don’t care about a word count per se, but I do write every day, and try to get at least four or more hours per day.
§ Where can we learn more about you?
www.addictarium.com, @NicPublications on IG, Twitter.
Please answer any or all of these as well (I leave these up to you):
§ What does your writing process look like?
It "looks like" madness. I was delighted when I found Henry Miller and saw photographs of his studio in Paris because I thought I was the only writer who really has no specific plan of action, and functions through dysfunction. Miller, like me, is a walking contradiction of chaos and madness. So I appreciated seeing all the note-taking, clippings, ideas, charts, etc.
His process, methods, were like mine; there wasn't a set plan, it was to learn, to jot things down I loved (no matter the number of notes everywhere) and to write. Just write. From the soul.
§ Give us an insight into your main character. What does he/she do that is so special?
Danielle Martino is a unique girl. Many of my reviewers point this out, and it's by design of course because she was meant to be a unique individual.
Danielle recovers from many addictions. She is in a battle against life. She is battling her own creative will, her inner-domination which is crushing her. We see before us, a young woman who desperately wants to make the right choices, moves, heal, yet she feels as though she is losing herself in the process. Danielle of course also faces ridiculous trauma. She not only heals herself but Angel, too. Her “Angel,” who heals her in return. She has this spark, this illumination, which draws people to her despite being so closed-off, and downright withdrawn at times, people are still drawn to her. She has this way of looking at things in which few others do, which for many folks, is the pull with her.
§ How important are names to you in your books? Do you choose the names based on liking the way it sounds or the meaning? Do you have any name choosing resources you recommend?
Names are important to me because often they represent real-life figures who I want to illuminate. I want to bring light to the many different characters in a setting such as the one the main character is in, in Addictarium. In doing that, I feel names are necessary, it’s a small tool to try to stay true to the person and the image I’ve built, the portrait I’ve painted of them.
§ How long on average does it take you to write a book?
My books take 3 - 5 years, including the additional work; editing, revising, proofing, etc.
My poetry collections have taken anywhere from a huge chunk of years to only 4 months or so to pen, depending on the collection and style.
§ Favorite authors?
Anais Nin, Vladimir Nabokov, Chuck Palahniuk, Robin Wassermann, Janet Fitch, Andersen Prunty, Henry Miller, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Friedrich Nietzsche, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Emily Dickinson, and many more.
§ Share some of your writing goals. What’s next for you?
I am releasing a prequel of Addictarium, which will be out this Spring! NARCOTARY is the story of Natalie (names changed, but the story IS a prequel), who I felt should have her own identity separate from Danielle. I changed the identity to tell her story, the first half, which is so different from the second part of treatment for her. It’s a metamorphosis and I felt different names would emphasize that well.
§ What is one of the things you’re most thankful for as a writer?
The gift of having words in and of itself! I am grateful for the opportunity to learn, to grow, to expand. I have been given the rare gift of both natural ability and time to hone my skills, and I appreciate all of it. I am very grateful.
§ If you didn’t like writing books, what would you do for a living?
I think I would be an artist in a different medium. I already practice painting, sketching, mixed media pop-art, photography. So I believe I’d be approaching one or more of those mediums on a more professional level.
I also love singing and performing, it would have been nice to pursue that too. But, one thing I really love doing which I pursued more behind-the-scenes per se, is being a director for / of music videos. I love designing that sort of thing.
§ What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?
I am an unusual girl. I have always been odd and perceived as a sort of an enigma. I am very open though, and also very aware. I think my interesting quirk is the ability to combine raw, gritty works with poetry.
§ Is there a certain type of scene that’s harder for you to write than others? Love? Action? Racy?
It was VERY HARD to pen the scenes between my characters Danielle and Angel. Mainly because it was so personal, so real. But also because I didn’t want to taint their love. I knew society would, I knew they wouldn’t be able to grasp it. It was hard to write for that reason. I had to make peace with that beforehand.
§ In your opinion, what’s the measure of a successful writer?
A published author / novelist / poet, who has produced something worthwhile and meaningful. I do not consider “a success” of somebody who has simply hit the #1 Bestseller list. That is great and an amazing feat if not compromised, but sales don’t prove anything. Many great artists were forced to starve while honing their work. Some were and are not discovered now, while value-less work dominates charts for everything, everywhere. So to me, a true artist, a truly creative, truly talented writer, is successful when he or she has found a voice, told a story and stuck by their own intent.
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ADDICTARIUM: Recovery from Heroin Abuse in the Asylum of Anarchy! (War Stories Chronicles Book 1)Kindle Edition
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LEARN MORE OR ORDER TODAY!
By Nicole D'Settēmi (Author, Illustrator), Jane Sapinsky (Editor), Sara Martin (Foreword)
Drugs. Sex. Detox. Art. Recovery. Prostitution. Music. Street life. Poetry. Toxic love. And, those are just on the surface. The layers and complexities of Addictarium will shock and enthrall you...
When wild-child, and south Florida escapee, Danielle Martino finds herself curled in a ball on the cold tile floors of her filthy rank bathroom in the tiny studio she rents with her fiancé and partner-in-crime, she knows it's time to quit abusing heroin. Severely impaired from shooting a bad batch of black tar heroin, and already partially blind from the infection that the muddy poison has caused, she is forced to hitch a greyhound bus to New York City, and to abandon her care-free, American-bohemian, drug infested life-style. Hailed everywhere as a beautiful, unique, honest, raw and poetic account of recovery, Addictarium takes readers on a compelling journey through the life and eyes of the narrator; a creative, nomadic, deep--but, incidentally broken--young woman, and underlines the contributing factors to what it's really like to suffer from addiction. With magnificent candor--and sometimes emotionally crippling descriptions--we witness Danielle's fight towards recovery from more than just heroin, as Addictarium brings the readers on a fascinating and harrowing, brutal tale of a young woman's recovery from total and mass self-destruction.
--Addictarium highlights in the starkest of lights, why it is so difficult for addicts to receive the recovery they seek, when they finally do decide to put the drug down.
“...There are times when the book can bring you to tears, times when the roil of emotions presented are so raw and real, it’s almost difficult to read. Addictarium is a journey. Half the time it’s a road-trip from hell and the other half is the vacation you’ll never forget because it’s so profound, so impacting. Addictarium is a journey; not just to who you are but to who you want to be. ”
- ANGEL ORIGINS REVIEWS, 08/08/2018
“...If you have not read this book yet just pick it and do it right now...I love the book, everything was perfect from the very beginning until the very end. An addictive masterpiece I would say. This book deserves 10 stars!”
- LINA, LINSPERSPECTIVE.COM, 01/2017
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