Nikki Woods

Your body keeps score of every interaction.
Every room where you swallowed yourself.
Every yes that cost you.
Every time you kept going because stopping wasn’t safe.

For a long time, I thought strength meant override.
Push through. Don’t flinch. Don’t rest too long.

My body told a different story.

Listening didn’t make me weaker.
It made me honest.

If you’re exhausted in a way sleep doesn’t touch, this isn’t laziness.
It’s data.

You don’t need more discipline.
You need safety.

This is the work behind The Strong One.
And it starts with learning how to listen—before your body has to scream.

Link in bio.

This photo was taken at Swift River around 1965.

My mother.
My maternal grandmother.
My father.
My paternal grandmother.
And my paternal grandfather.

My dad is the one behind the camera.

This is where the story started—long before I had language for it. Before I understood what was being carried, or how much of it would come to rest with me.

Swift River wasn’t imagined.
It was inherited.

I wrote it from moments like this—ordinary on the surface, weighted underneath. From family gathered near water that knew more than we did. From love, proximity, and the quiet knowledge that not everything in a photograph stays still.

I’ve shared the beginning of the novel as The Swift River Reader.
It starts where memory starts doing the work.

👉 The Swift River Reader
maroonhousepress.com