WHO?

Amy Brecount White is a writer and lives with her family in Arlington, Va.

Why a novel about the language of flowers? That’s the question I get asked more than any other by fellow writers and fans of my young adult (YA) novel, Forget-Her-Nots. No one’s ever written a novel about the language of flowers, they say. Exactly. Like all the best stories, my inspiration came from several sources: professional, personal and natural.

White’s young adult novel Forget-Her-Nots

My professional inspiration came from Nobel Prize Laureate Toni Morrison. Many years ago, I heard her speak in Washington, D.C. An audience member asked her for writing advice, and she gave the best ever: “Write the novel that only you can write.” For me, her words reverberated like an invocation, because I hadn’t heard it put that way. She was urging us to be unique and to write from our hearts and souls. Her exhortation led to much introspection on my part.

At the time, I was freelance writing for The Washington Post and magazines, raising my three kids and generally quite busy; however, I mulled over Morrison’s words while mopping up stray Cheerios and playing Candyland. What did I care most deeply about? For whom did I truly want to write? And what did I have in me that was worth sharing? Between finishing my M.A. in English at U.Va. and having my own kids, I had spent time teaching English at St. Gertrude’s, an all-girls high school in Richmond, Va., and I loved those girls. Granted, teenage girls can be cruel, shallow and annoying, but I also found them to be sweet and grateful and open to anyone who respected and valued their flowering souls. As several other YA writers and I explained to our audience at the 2010 Virginia Festival of the Book, we choose to write for the YA audience because so many things happen for the first time in your life at that age. First love, first kiss, first serious temptations, and first realization of the weight this world can have. I’d found my target audience.

Dogwood flowers symbolize durability and love that overcomes adversity.

Lily of the Valley symbolize the return of happiness.

As a freelance writer, my intellectual antennae were always on high alert for new story ideas, so when I saw a beautiful coffee table book about tussie-mussies and the Victorian language of flowers at a bookstore, I snatched it up. Despite a sheaf of queries, I never did get an assignment to write a magazine piece about the language of flowers. I did, however, make a bouquet for an ill friend using flowers from my own garden. Susan had ovarian cancer and a dismal prognosis, but I wished with all my heart that my delicate flower messages of hope, health, love and strength could come true for her. I deeply wished for some flower magic. I’d found my unique topic.

Red camellias symbolize unpretending excellence.

A large percentage of the articles I was writing then involved field trips with my kids to various D.C. locations filled with flora and fauna. As I jotted notes, I began to smell the roses more … and the lilies of the valley and chrysanthemums. Everywhere I went, I sought out gardens, observing and breathing in their special magic and their message of hope and renewal. I got more adventuresome in my own backyard garden. I wanted the magic of my novel, of my flowers, to be believable and just a few steps away from reality. I truly believe there is a kind of magic in giving flowers.

Quite frankly, it took me much longer than I expected to craft the story that only I could. For my setting, I created an imaginary girls’ boarding school outside of Charlottesville, because I remembered the lush, scented springs from my days there in grad school. (My undergraduate days were spent in the colder clime of South Bend, Ind.) I needed a long and lovely spring in which to unfold my plot.

Amy Brecount White.

In retrospect, my road to publication was long, windy, and had lots of potholes, but I made it.  And my next book? I’m writing String Theories about a 14-year-old girl, the stream behind her house, and getting even.  It’s a book that only I could write.

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