From a Glamorous Fashion Career to Fantasy Novels, Summer Nilsson’s Journey to ‘The Land of the Pines’

Over the course of two-plus decades, Dallas’ Summer Nilsson has counted Hearst and Texas-born Brandon Maxwell as clients and worked with magazines including People, House Beautiful, Elle, and Food Network Magazine, developing brand strategy. This trajectory has resulted in game-changing partnerships and national purpose-driven campaigns — yet her latest career move was to launch a book series targeting middle-grade readers. In August, when the first book in her “Loodor Tales” series, The Land of the Pines, came out, the lushly illustrated story was Amazon’s No. 1 new release in children’s intermediate readers.

Why such a shift from her former day-to-day life of meetings with glamorous clients?

“I sat in meeting after meeting with the biggest brands in the fashion and beauty industries. The topic of social media and the impact on tweens and teens continued to surface,” she says. “As an aunt to two 13-year-old girls and a 16-year-old nephew, I decided to put my background to better use. Creating Loodor was a personal choice to encourage kids with a message of confidence, connection, and kindness.”

 

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A portion of The Land of the Pines sales benefits Operation Kindness, a pioneer in North Texas for providing assistance to animals in need of medical care, companionship, and most of all, a home. At a recent follow-up lunch with Nilsson, she shared that she’s almost finished with the second book.