Nica Lalli

Nica Lalli is the author of Nothing: Something to Believe In (Prometheus Books, 2007), a memoir which tells the story of her life outside of organized religion and traces her many mishaps and misadventures she has had with religion. It is her first book.

Nica was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, 1964. She moved to Chicago when she was two and grew up there until she was 13. In 1977, her family moved to New York: the Summer of Sam, the summer of the blackout, and the year that President Ford told New York to “drop dead.”

Nica went to high school in Harlem, at the LaGuardia High School of Music and the Arts (the Fame school). She studied art at Vassar College, and met her future husband during their senior year. She continued to paint and study art (at the New York Studio School), and earned her Masters in Fine Art from American University in Washington, DC.

She has been a working artist for many years, and has shown her work in New York, Los Angeles, Ohio and Vermont. In 1993, Nica won the prestigious Vassar College Rose Prize for the Creative Arts for her painting. Since 1998, she has been a freelance educator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art working in the Outreach, Access and Family Programs.

Nica Lalli currently lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn with her husband, two children, and Milo the dog. She was the President of the PTA of her children’s public school for two years and remains involved in the schools. She also sits on the local Community Board, where she serves as the chair of the Parks committee.

She is working on several other writing projects and hopes to get more painting done soon.

Visit her website at www.nicalalli.com.