Denise Nicholas, author of Finding Home
Original Airdates: Apr. 10-13, 2026
TVC 732.4: Ed welcomes Denise Nicholas, the Golden Globe-nominated actress known to television audiences for her starring roles in Room 222 and In the Heat of the Night, and the author of Freshwater Road, the critically acclaimed novel that was largely drawn from Denise’s experience as a working actress with the Free Southern Theater in the Deep South in 1964, at the height of the Civil Rights Movement. Denise’s new memoir, Finding Home, is a moving look at her lifelong search for who and what she is—a search that that not only navigates the intersections of love and identity, but which sees Denise endure many traumatic events throughout her life, including nearly being killed several times while performing with the Free Southern Theater; overcoming her volatile marriage to singer Bill Withers; and trying to unfathom the tragic murder of her younger sister, Michele Burgen, in 1980 (a case that is still unsolved). Finding Home is available wherever books are sold through Agate Publishing and Amazon.com.
Aretha Franklin and Denise Nicholas in a scene from “Where is It Written?”, an episode of Room 222 that originally aired in January 1972. Photo courtesy IMDb
Topics this segment include how Denise has always had the soul of a writer, even when she began her career as an actress; how her experience with the Free Southern Theater not only ignited Denise’s lifelong commitment to social justice and activism, but served as the backdrop to the struggles and achievements that marked her path as an artist; how Denise based Liz McIntyre (the guidance counselor she played on Room 222) on her aunt Fanette, a guidance counselor in the Detroit public school system; and the emotional difficulty that Denise often faced in writing about some of the most traumatic moments in her life, including the murder of her sister.
Denise Nicholas and Carroll O’Connor in In the Heat of the Night. Photo courtesy IMDb
Denise Nicholas on “finding a way in” as a writer
Original Airdates: Apr. 10-13, 2026
TVC 732.5: Actress and novelist Denise Nicholas (Room 222, In the Heat of the Night, Freshwater Road) talks to Ed about working with Sidney Poitier as a director three times (and how she particularly relished the comedic roles she played opposite Poitier and Bill Cosby in Let’s Do It Again and A Piece of the Action); how she first met Carroll O’Connor long before they starred together in In the Heat of the Night (and before O’Connor came to mentor Denise as a writer); why she enjoys writing literary fiction among all other genres; and how Denise has “a little Norman Lear in her” as a writer.
Denise’s memoir, Finding Home, and her novel, Freshwater Road, are available wherever books are sold through Agate Publishing and Amazon.com.
Denise Nicholas is also one of the six authors—along with Denise Billings, Otto Stallworth, Jr., GW Williams, Hattie Winston, and Charles Floyd Johnson—whose work is featured in A Gathering of Voices: The Longwood Writers Workshop, an anthology of vibrant, introspective, lyrical, and personal stories that provide a full, rich, and multidimensional look at life in Black America.
A Gathering of Voices is available through BookBaby.com, Amazon.com, and LongwoodWritersWorkshop.com
