Wortfachgeschäft by Nicola Gold For the Love of Words

When I meet Nicola Gold to find out everything about her Wortfachgeschäft, her lively energy is so infectious that I don’t even know where to begin my description. "Multi-talented whirlwind" sums it up quite well. She is creative and inspirited by her love of words. A former dancer, she moves within all forms of self-expression, works as a voice-over artist, loves improv theater, studied literature and English – but it is words she stuck with. And with the question: how can I give my words to people?

As it happens, chance helped her along. In one of her friends’ living-room she discovered an old typewriter under a thick layer of dust. Nobody knows where it originally came from. The friend had bought it at a flea market in Geneva, the keyboard is Spanish, the name American: "Remington 7 Noiseless". Thanks to her Remington, she then knew how to pass on her words. And her motto "Tell me a word and I write you a poem" was born. The most requested word, by the way is ... love. Freedom is the runner-up.

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So far, the artist and her typewriter have travelled quite a lot together. They seem connected in a way, Nicola’s eyes gleam when she talks about her "instrument". Typewriter writing is also a way to outsmart herself, says the gifted improv-writer. She is a perfectionist through and through, the good old typewriter, however, does not allow for a "delete" or copy/paste, there are no rewrites when she writes live. Every word has to tell. And it tells.

It was at a reading in the Detailsinn Fotowerkstatt that I first met Nicola. She sat at a small, old-fashioned desk in the center of the room, typing away at her Remington. With light hands and a sharp wit she transformed thought flashes, ideas, observations, and her guests’ word requests to poetic gems. I overheard a couple rave about the poem they had requested as a gift for someone. They were amazed at how it fitted the presentee like a glove, even though they had just said one word. It always fits, but I can’t explain why, says Nicola. Well, there is no harm in a little bit of magic!

She also had her popular oracle cards with her that day. We picked two: "sometimes i look out of the window and everything i see dissolves" and "how much longer does the meantime last?" Her oracles are one-, two-, or three-liners that make you think or laugh or make no sense at all. Some are funny, some have lots of philosophical depth. But they all are spontaneous, authentic, and inspired by the present moment. Now you can get her oracle cards at Supersense’s new Artomat, a vending machine for small art objects. And you can turn her poems to a message in a bottle there, too.

Nicola can be booked for events. She enthusiastically tells me about weddings where she turned her guests’ well-wishes into poetry or surrealist verbal concoctions. The atmosphere has a great influence on her style, so every situation and every event is different. It seems like she likes to surprise herself. Whether her Wortfachgeschäft – the term is German for specialty word store – will ever be a real shop, she is not sure. On the one hand she finds the idea charming, on the other hand it is more interesting for her to actively go out into the world where the people and the stories are.

This is what she does as our new co-author with Creme Guides. This makes us very happy and we are looking forward to her insider tips for Vienna. Welcome, Nicola!