Christmas morning 1995... A girl opened one last oddly shaped gift in the family living room.  It didn't take long for that young girl to realize that what she held in her hands was the one thing that she had been wanting for years: an acoustic guitar.  Long Island native, Nicole Monroe wrote her first song that same day, playing the open strings and singing a melody over top. Monroe spent several years following that day advancing her guitar playing and song writing proficiency, finally performing three of her original songs in public at age 13.  "I was so nervous, but determined to do it! I forgot the lyrics in the middle of my first song and all I remember hearing was a man in the crowd whisper 'It's okay.  Go on, you can do it' so I did and it felt amazing."

As a shy and sensitive teen, she found writing music to be an emotional outlet and performing was her way of releasing those emotions one word at a time.  Nicole states, "I had always been drawn to the emotion behind everything, be it a song, a film, sometimes even a news article" and she has a knack for eloquently expressing emotion through her art.  Audiences from Boston, Massachusetts down to Charlotte, North Carolina have experienced the joy, fear, and pain in every word and chord when Monroe performs.  When you stand back and watch her interact with fans, you hear first hand of her ability to connect with an audience on a very personal level.

In 2005, Monroe self-released a five-song EP titled Notebooks and Pencils.  The release was also engineered and produced by Monroe, who also performed all instruments and vocals. Following the release, she took time to focus on school and work, and sadly music slipped out of her reach as she started acting like more of an adult.  The story doesn't end there though.  In 2010, Monroe moved to Charlotte, NC where she fell back in love with the art of performing.  And by 2012 she was a Nominee for the CMA Women in Rock category.

Nicole is currently in Charlotte writing material for her follow-up EP, which she is hoping to begin working on this year.  Her passion doesn't end with music, either.  she is forming a charitable foundation, which she will donate a percentage of EP sales to, in order to support homegrown non-profit organizations.  "I want to be at least a tiny hand giving back to those people who are doing great things.  Even if i can only give a little at a time, I know that I am making a slight difference," she states.

You can purchase Nicole Monroe's EP Notebooks and Pencils now on iTunes and Amazon.


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