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This episode features our conversation with author, actress, and activist Denise Nicholas, which was live-streamed on January 17, 2026.

Nicholas's memoir, Finding Home (Agate Bolden, 2025), chronicles her time growing up in Detroit, her trailblazing acting and writing career, her personal journey, and familial loss. With eloquence, vulnerability, and resolve, Nicholas mines her six-decade journey through TV and film stardom, the complexities of her three marriages, and her reconstituting her creative life to become a celebrated novelist, reflecting on the personal, professional, and societal pressures that buffeted her throughout. Constructed of episodic reflections from both personal and professional high points and low points of her life, Nicholas navigates the intersections of love and identity, exploring how her experiences in Hollywood shaped her understanding of success, intimacy, and commitment. Her narrative is rich with anecdotes from her career in Hollywood, as an actor and, later, a successful screenwriter for television and eventually a novelist, providing a backdrop to the struggles and achievements that marked her path. She outspokenly discusses the challenges she faced as a trailblazing actress of color, shedding light on the systemic barriers and biases within the entertainment industry.

Learn more about Denise Nicholas by visiting denisenicholas.net. 

Purchase your copy of Finding Home: https://bookshop.org/a/114101/9781572843530

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