Mike Nichols is a sixth-generation Texan who has trafficked in words all of his adult life. He worked twenty-three years for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram as a copy editor, humor columnist, and travel writer. As a travel writer, he schlepped his suitcases and cameras to more than forty countries on all seven continents before he realized that his favorite destination in the world is his own backyard.
He is the author of three other books: Life and Other Ways to Kill Time, Real Men Belch Downwind, and Women Are from Pluto, Men Are from Uranus. Balaam Gimble's Gumption is his first novel.
Nichols lives in rural Van Zandt County, just down the road a piece from the fictional town of Willoughby. Like Balaam Gimble, Nichols lives amid carefully uncultivated woods and weeds. Like Balaam Gimble, he drives a pickup truck that is old enough to vote. Unlike Balaam Gimble, he does not have a pet deer, although he is on a first-name basis with several wild ones.