Nora Kinsella

Nora Kinsella is a New York City writer. She writes the guides on this site, from how the neighborhoods fit together to the small questions that come up when you are trying to figure out what the city is actually like.

She grew up in Sunnyside, Queens, and worked for eight years at a print shop in Long Island City, where she edited menus, gallery cards and event programs. It was good training for this job: make things clear, leave out what people do not need, and find the one detail that helps someone decide. She visits the places she writes about and is careful to separate what she knows from what she thinks.

A bit about Nora

She grew up in Sunnyside, four blocks from the 7 train, in the two-family house her grandparents bought in 1968. Sundays were planned around the kitchen table, usually with some arguing first. She still likes making a plan that way: slowly, with opinions from everyone in the room.

Her mother worked at the Queens Public Library branch on Skillman Avenue for nineteen years. Nora started reading the local papers there before she was old enough to understand most of them, and learned early that the person behind the desk usually knows more than the sign. Her father drove delivery routes through Brooklyn and Queens and could name every bridge approach in order. When the BQE is a mess, she still thinks through his route first.

She studied art history at Hunter because it gave her four years of museums and a habit of lingering in front of things. After college, she spent eight years at that print shop in Long Island City. For two of those years, she also put together the programs for a ninety-seat theater in Sunnyside.

Nora lives in Ridgewood now, one stop over the border, in an apartment with too many books and a radiator she has stopped trying to fix. She cooks on Sundays, swims badly but regularly at the public pool, and has been learning Spanish from her neighbors for three years. The results have been mixed.

When she is not writing, she would rather walk the length of an avenue than take the train. She keeps a list of places she has not visited yet, with about forty names on it right now, mostly in the Bronx. She also shows up early to free events, just in case they turn out to be bad. The best email she can get is from someone who went somewhere because of one of her guides and had a good time.