Franz Nicolay is a musician and writer living in New York’s Hudson Valley. In addition to records under his own name (“a natural-born star”—Pitchfork), he was a member of cabaret-punk orchestra World/Inferno Friendship Society, “world’s best bar band” the Hold Steady (“one of the all-time great New York bands”—Rolling Stone), Balkan-jazz quartet Guignol, co-founded the composer-performer collective Anti-Social Music, was a touring member of agit-punks Against Me!; and recordedor performed with dozens of other acts.  His first book, The Humorless Ladies of Border Control: Touring the Punk Underground from Belgrade to Ulaanbaatar, was named a “Season’s Best Travel Book” by The New York Times. His second book, the novel Someone Should Pay For Your Pain, was called “a knockout fiction debut” by Buzzfeed; and was named one of Rolling Stone “Best Music Books of 2021” (“finally, the great indie-rock novel…like Dostoyevsky in a DIY punk space”). In fall 2024, his third book Band People, a non-fiction study of the working and creative lives of musicians, will appear on University of Texas Press’ American Music series. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Slate, The Paris Review Daily, The Kenyon Review Online, Ploughshares, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Threepenny Review, and elsewhere. He has taught at UC–Berkeley and in Columbia University’s MFA fiction program, and is currently a faculty member in music and written arts at Bard College.