Hi, I'm Nita.
I love stories about ordinary people doing their best in extraordinary times, especially in worlds that have seen better days, and so those are the kinds of stories I endeavour to write.
I'm drawn to the kinds of stories that ask big questions in small, human ways: how we care for each other, how we remember, how we make a home when everything familiar has changed. Sometimes that means a post-apocalyptic landscape or a distant moon. Sometimes it's just my quiet kitchen after a hard day.
My fiction leans hopeful. I don't mean to say that everything turns out neatly, but that there's always a light in the distance - something worth walking toward.
I believe in the power of kindness, the fragile beauty of love, and the way stories help us tell the truth about who we are and what still matters.
Welcome to my little corner of the world. I'm so glad you're here.
What I'm Currently Querying:
The Face of Amore, is a work of literary science fiction. Underneath the plot, the story is driven by the concept of hiraeth: a Welsh word that gestures toward homesickness, though is actually more elusive than that. More bittersweet. There is no English language equivalent, but the Welsh describe it as the ache for a home, person, or place that belongs as much to memory and longing as it does to soil and stone. Bound up in that ache is tenderness, a kind of love that persists even in absence. Hiraeth deeply missing someone or something, but also holding it close.
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What I'm Currently Working on:
The Light at the End of the World was previously represented by a literary agent with whom I've since parted ways. I'm slowly revising the manuscript with the plan to seek new representation for it some day. Underneath the plot run themes of belonging and found family.
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New Work in Progress:
Stay tuned - I'm a bit superstitious about sharing just yet
More than Words is my personal blog - a collection of letters addressed to a person who I have named Vi.
As in rhymes with pie.
...But you should silently substitute your own name, because you're the one I'm really writing to.
I'm doing my best to follow the poet Mary Oliver's most excellent instructions for living a life: pay attention, be astonished, and tell about it.
This is the tell about it part! 💛
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Using Clothing Details to Reveal Emotion
Dear Vi, My friend Jean wrote to me the other day with the link to Tom and Lorenzo’s Movie Advent Calendar, about Christmas dresses worn by characters in Hollywood classics, and how they were designed to do a specific job. She sent it to me because of our mutual love of dresses, but there’s a…
Read MoreHow a Mary Oliver Poem Helped Me Rethink Paying Attention
Mary Oliver’s Instructions for living a life:Pay attention.Be astonished.Tell about it. Dear Vi, Some time ago I came upon this poem by Mary Oliver and it struck me, it really struck me, that this is not something that is part of our world anymore. Paying attention, I mean. Being astonished by the little things that…
Read MoreWhat I’ve Learned After Querying 40 Literary Agents for My Novel
Last month I sent out the fortieth query in my novel query process. Forty queries means forty carefully crafted emails, each with its own research behind it—researching agents, checking submission guidelines, double-checking agent interests, double-checking email address, and triple-checking that I’ve spelled the agent’s name correctly. (There are few nightmares worse than realizing you addressed…
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