Born June 28th, 2001, Nicholas Chimera has always had an enthusiasm to create. For years he focused his creativity into customizing action figures and models with his brother, Carmelo. Recently, Nick has taken up photography and created a brand called Chimeras Customs to share his art on social media.

Nick has used everything he has learned and injected it into his writing, particularly his martial arts background. He earned a black belt in Tae Kwan Do when he was 13-years-old, and currently studies traditional Shorin Ryu Karate. His stories often involve realistic, physical fights between good and evil.

He began writing creatively in seventh grade, when he wrote plays for his classmates to act out for other classes at his grammar school, St. Germaine. Nick continues to pursue his love for movies and theater with Brother Rice High School’s Drama Club.

In his sopohmore year, Nick joined his high school’s Broadcast Journalism class and currently holds a leading role in their digital media through school newscasts and commentating sports events. He now uses the video editing and filming skills he learned when attending Loyola University’s High School Digital Storytelling workshop, to create short films. Nick volunteers to work at Christ Hospital’s Ronald Mcdonald House in Oak Lawn, Illinois, and has dressed up as Spider-Man to visit a sick child at a fundraiser for cancer research.

He began writing The Crusader in his Freshman year of high school and spent the following two years perfecting the writing. It all began with an idea for the costume—all white with a blue cape and hood. The colors for the Crusader’s costume are meant to symbolize purity, and honesty, with the royal blue representing the character’s power.

Nick hopes you enjoy his first book, The Crusader— the beginning of a vast universe of heroes and villains, and the conflict’s people face as they react to power.