Happy Flower Moon, everyone!
Up in Toronto we're experiencing a wonderful blooming, a beautiful bird migration, and lots of slowly-getting-warmer days as we inch towards summer.
With this warm spring breeze I’m thrilled to welcome our latest 3 Books guest: a luminous force in publishing, a powerhouse editor-turned-author, and a wonderful storyteller ... the one and only Nita Prose!
Today Nita is best known for her Molly the Maid mystery series which features three main titles and a holiday edition—‘The Maid,’ ‘The Mystery Guest,’ ‘The Mistletoe Mystery,’ and ‘The Maid's Secret’—which have collectively sold over 2 million copies.
Raised in Ontario’s Simcoe County, Nita began her career by contributing to literary magazines, became a production editor with HarperCollins, and then became a Senior Editor at Doubleday.
She then held the lofty publishing position of Vice President and Editorial Director at Simon & Schuster Canada and oversaw titles by authors like Rupi Kaur (@rupikaur_), Kate Morton (@katemortonauthor), Iain Reid (@tidydissolve), and... me!
Nita was the editor of my book on resilience ‘You Are Awesome: How To Navigate Change, Wrestle with Failure, and Live an Intentional Life’ which came out in 2019 and my book on gratitude and community ‘Our Book Of Awesome,’ which came out in 2022.
Nita has since left publishing to write full-time and today her phenomenal career and perspectives offer a true publishing and writing masterclass.
Tune in as we discuss: What does an editor actually do? How do you get a job in publishing? What writing routines structure Nita’s stories? Why might you keep the novel you're writing a secret from your long-term partner? How do you write an allegory? And (of course!) which 3 books most shaped her life?
We talk about creating characters grounded in emotional truths, measuring success within the labyrinth-like writing industry, the importance of reading across genres, and much, much more.
Let’s flip the page to Chapter 160 now...
Chapter 160: Nita Prose on mastering manuscripts and making Molly the Maid
View full transcript here
CONNECT with NITA
NITA’s 3 Books
First Book (27:10)
Second Book (40:44)
Third Book (1:03:24)
WORDCLOUD OF THE CHAPTER
Quotes
“Sometimes through the metaphor of story there can be greater truth than in fact.” – Nita Prose | 3 Books Podcast
“The proximity to books is the biggest gift and you make the sacrifice of monetary gain for that." – Nita Prose | 3 Books Podcast
“I measure success by writing a story that moves me . . . and hopefully moves some other people.” – Nita Prose | 3 Books Podcast
“Rule number one for my world I created is emotional truth. Then rule number two is what can I get away with believably where the reader can step into my experience and complete the picture.” – Nita Prose | 3 Books Podcast
“I think libraries are so hugely important, and I hope that books stay at the heart of libraries—although they also are acting and need to be acting as community hubs.” – Nita Prose | 3 Books Podcast
“Not everything that a novelist writes is meant to be a hard cold fact. Almost every novel in some way or another is allegorical.” – Nita Prose | 3 Books Podcast
“There's a part of me that becomes very plastic and malleable, fragile and flexible in that creative state and I want to be the only person manipulating in that state.” – Nita Prose | 3 Books Podcast
“I don’t give advice, all I can do is give story.” – Nita Prose | 3 Books Podcast
"The thing about a career in the arts is that it is always, always a wild wild ride so you gotta buckle up. The lows are low, the highs are high (as so many of my friends in publishing say) and I think that's so very true. But I wouldn't have it any other way.” – Nita Prose | 3 Books Podcast
"If you want to be a writer you need to read. What I mean is don't only read for pleasure, don't only read what you like, but read to dissect." – Nita Prose | 3 Books Podcast
Show Notes
‘Foe’ by Iain Reid
‘I’m Thinking of Ending Things’ by Iain Reid
Library tourism
‘Steal Like an Artist’ by Austin Kleon
‘The Great Gatsby’ by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Blue Heron Books in Uxbridge
Magic realism
‘Self’ by Yann Martel
‘Beatrice and Virgil’ by Yann Martel
‘The High Mountains of Portugal’ by Yann Martel
‘Sideways Stories from Wayside School’ by Louis Sachar
‘The Weird Sisters’ by Eleanor Brown
‘The Postmistress’ by Sarah Blake
‘The Help’ by Kathryn Stockett
'The Book of Awesome' by Neil Pasricha
‘A Prayer for Owen Meany’ by John Irving
‘David Copperfield’ by Charles Dickens
‘Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts’ by Margaret Atwood
‘Dune’ by Frank Herbert
‘Moby Dick’ by Herman Melville
‘The Girl on the Train’ by Paula Hawkins
