[4][5] As part of the producing team of Abbott Elementary, Nichols was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series in 2023.
[6] Nichols moved to Los Angeles after college and developed the web series Words With Girls (2012), which she later rewrote as a full-length pilot that was produced by Issa Rae and Deniese Davis's initiative ColorCreative.tv.
[7][8][9] The series centered a group of queer twenty-something roommates in LA and starred Nichols, Corbin Reid, Hannah Hart, Alex Sturman, and Lauren Neal.
[10] Nichols stated in an interview that she set out to make a lesbian movie that "wasn’t about coming out, sleeping with a man, or a character death at the end".
[11] Both Words with Girls and Suicide Kale draw on Nichols' own experiences as a lesbian, and she has stated repeatedly in interviews that she is committed to increasing LGBTQ and African-American representation in media.