Nicholas Lamar Soutter is a writer and philosopher, born in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
He began writing (so to speak) at 4, when he would make books out of construction paper and dictate stories for his parents and teachers to write for him. When he learned to read and write for himself, he began writing voraciously, stealing his mother’s typewriter and keeping it secreted away like some boys would hide the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.
In high school he wrote four full length novels (he had no aspirations to be a writer, he just assumed that this is what everyone did with their spare time).
In college he completed only one more novel, while earning Bachelors’ Degrees in Philosophy and Psychology. He also began writing essays, and won four Editor’s Choice awards for his essays on Politics and the Social Sciences on Gather.com
After graduating Clark University he tried unsuccessfully to get one of his earlier works, Killdroid Rising, published. The Donald Maass Literary Agency picked up his book From Inside the Mirror, about a psychopathic but brilliant former FBI agent. While the book received rave reviews from multiple publishers, it was universally rejected, citing an inability to effectively market or categorize it.
During that time he read Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged. While he enjoyed the work, and agreed with many of the arguments therein, he felt a nagging sense that it was, none the less, quite flawed. He broke down the structure of Rand’s arguments and found what he believed to be the flaw, and wrote a rebuttal novel, The Water Thief, which was awarded a Kirkus Star in 2012.
In 2013 Nick met Jack McClintock, a former prison therapist. Together they wrote the novel Confessions of a Sin Eater, a story about John Henry Greaney, a prison psychologist.
Nick lives in the Boston area with his wife and two daughters. He continues his Essays on Politics and the Social Sciences and The Business and Craft of Writing, and teaches a bi-weekly writer’s workshop.