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.
What I'm Currently Revising:
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.
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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How a Winter Walk Solved A Writing Problem
Dear Vi, One of the story ideas I’ve got simmering on my brain’s back burner is set in a fictional town beside the Stewart River in Canada’s Yukon Territory. So far I only have the setting, but it’s important to me that the setting should almost be like character in the novel, not just a…
How to Show Tension in an Everyday Scene
This article explains a simple way to create scene tension in fiction. A strong scene shows a character with a goal, an obstacle in the way, and a decision about what to do next.
Knit One, Revise Two: What Knitting Taught Me About Revising My Novel
Dear Vi, I was staring at the draft of my novel the other day, contemplating a scene I loved but that didn’t quite fit the storyline. As I debated whether to fix it or ignore it, a post from my knitting friend Dee popped up in my feed. “I screwed the pattern up,” she’d written…
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