Nicholas Hellyer is a writer, author and actor living in Los Angeles, California. They identify as non-binary and use they/them pronouns.
Born in Texas, Nicholas bounced around a few states with their family before landing in Cheyenne, Wyoming at the age of 8. There in the the Great Plains they discovered their love for storytelling with a sock puppet show in their highschool theater class.
After graduating high school (and quoting Spongebob in their graduation speech), Nicholas moved to Los Angeles in pursuit of a BFA at AMDA LA. Amidst the wonderfully talented and creative people Nicholas met, they explored further into what story telling meant for them. In their years at AMDA LA, they wrote, directed and starred in short films, co-founded of a (short-lived) sketch comedy group, and founded a table top gaming club on campus.
Nicholas teaching the basics of D&D to the AMDA Rolls TTRPG club.
After graduating in 2020 and being thrown into the 1-2 punch of independent adulthood and a world-wide pandemic, Nicholas continued to seek out story telling in a wide variety of directions. As co-founder of the Intoxicated Readers, they hosted a weekly writing workshop and three different short film festivals. With the crew in the Intoxicated Readers, they helped produce two short films and countless original scripts.
After finishing the short film Nam Myoho Renge Kyo, Nicholas felt they needed a fresh start in a new direction. When a close friend suggested trying a month-long novel writing challenge, Nicholas dove in and drafted their first full length novel. While they had tried to write a novel once before, their writing experience was almost exclusively with scripts and angsty teen journaling. With a book about saving cats, a brain that yearned for worlds of magic, and an laptop on its dying breath, Nicholas wrote the manuscript to their first novel, which is still being finalized.
Nicholas at the Culver City Film Festival for the premiere of Nam Myoho Renge Kyo
Eager to continue the life-long journey of authorhood, Nicholas realized that every good book needs a plethora of good readers. Following a viral Instagram trend, they created the Novel of Followers project. With the goal of writing 1 word for every follower the NoF Instagram account gained, they began a journey of writing an entire novel with input of thousands of people. Though the original premise was abandoned for the sake of their mental health, Nicholas wrote Of Gods and Genomes: A Novel of Followers between 2024 and 2025. At its peak during this time, the NoF account had more than 6000 followers. On July 18th, 2025, Of Gods and Genomes was released as Nicholas Hellyer's debut novel.
At present, Nicholas is most likely basking in the glow of their newly-acquired title of "Self-Published Author."
Somewhere along the basking, they are also working on their next project.
A project that won't have anything to do with posting daily on social media for months at a time.
