We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Nora MacIntyre. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Nora below.
Nora, appreciate you joining us today. Have you been able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen? Was it like that from day one? If not, what were some of the major steps and milestones and do you think you could have sped up the process somehow knowing what you know now?
Ah, the perennial paradox of it all — yes and no, to great nuance! In many ways, indeed; I’ve enjoyed the fruits of my curious nature, all of which have led me to survive and thrive on an ever chameleonic career path. I’ve worn many hats that allowed me to flex my creative muscles: in banking, I sought to contribute copy and marketing in an area I felt to be dry and uninspired while learning to tighten my technical skills. Film, which brought me to Los Angeles, has seen me play just about every role besides that of a director or PA: I’ve worked the theater circuit and forayed into event management. Now, I’m in sales, connecting communities through art and camaraderie. It’s a great job but it’s still a corporate sales position at the end of the day, which brings me to the ‘no’ element.
This job, like the others preceding it, can only offer me so much in the realms of creative autonomy. I don’t want to sell, and I don’t want to bank — I want to write, to further grow my small art business with my partner, and to be able to enjoy the luxury of doing these things without the weight of a secondary, temporary career to bulwark these endeavors. I dream of a life where I once again relish the art of writing instead of viewing it as an exhaustive chore after a full day of doing something that doesn’t ultimately fulfill me, and I come closer to achieving that life every day. Every experience holds a silver lining, even the bad ones, and I credit those to helping me grow as a person and as an artist.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
The first word I ever spoke was ‘no,’ and it was a portent of my determined spirit. By the age of three, I was writing, reading, and had firmly decided that I would be a writer when I grew up despite the protests of anybody who dared humble me. I drew stories out of thin air, drafted menus for family dinners and eagerly recounted daily goings that I’d publish in a neighborhood newspaper. Writing was my happy place, a boundless frontier where days became nights and dreams became novellas. My only extracurricular in high school was creative writing, and that continued into college when I electively took poetry classes outside my major.
Up until that point, I’d largely written only poetry, short stories, and personal vignettes, but a newfound passion in film proved a revelation and established the bulk of my current repertoire: analysis, often through a particular sapphic lens I found to be lacking in the film theory which I’d read. I’m a proud lesbian and a passionate individual, two things that liberally shape my writing and give it a singular, compassionate edge in a traditionally cut and dry profession. I weave sentences that imbue complexity and dimension to emotions that far outweighs any one word descriptor like ‘sad’ or ‘happy.’
I’ve been writing professionally on media since 2014, when I was a contributor for a video game magazine. More recently my film criticism has been published in Layered Butter magazine. For the most part, however, I self publish under my own name, Nora MacIntyre, on various different platforms that separately distinguish and showcase the versatility of my style. My film content is typically associated with my twitter, Letterboxd, and WordPress (notoriouslynora), while I reserve poetry for my Substack (La Luna Ariete) and copy on my website portfolio. I like to keep them separate yet connected — I feel it imperative that I establish myself as a writer first and foremost, and not limit myself to one genre or niche.
To date, I’m most proud of an essay I wrote for Arrow video’s Film Noir volume 2 release. It was a dream come true to see my name on a DVD booklet and a high I’ve been chasing ever since.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
Happiness and fulfillment. I’ve struggled with my mental health for a long time in the past and have fought long and hard to be where I am, and to know that I deserve to be prioritizing the things that give me purpose and joy.
How’d you meet your business partner?
Boxxbites is the small business I created with my partner, Alex, and we sell dimensional canvases, mini shadow boxes, and custom cat portraits. They’re my best friend and my everything, and also a writer — we both wanted to be able to be creative in a dynamic and tactile way, and so our faction was born!
I was “downloaded off the internet” (read: matched on tinder with) by Alex almost two years ago now after years of futile scrolling. She messaged first, complimented my Sunflower earrings, and then two dates later misremembered the second date as our first. I was instantly smitten and that’s when I knew I’d found my match.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://notoriouslynora.wixsite.com/nora-macintyre
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/notoriouslynora
- Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/elliemacintyre
- Twitter: @notoriouslynora
