Friday, August 19, 2011

The Truth About Me and Beatrix Potter

Time for rejoicing!  My agent-niece, a literary rep of brilliance and renown, has closed a deal with Timber Press for my book about Beatrix Potter's gardening pursuits.  To read more about this see:  Bent on Books: When Even Nepotism Isn't Enough.

Time for true confessions.  Childhood memories can be a fraud.  I always remembered Peter Rabbit fondly. As I started researching Beatrix Potter, it was with that cozy feeling that I had learned to read partly with the help of this bunny-behaving-badly.  Enter my sister Kay, five years older and equally wiser who broke the news, "We had some book called "Little Peter Cottontail."  Warm, fuzzy bubble burst.  My introduction to Peter Rabbit was a knockoff.


There's an "Importance of Copyright" lesson here, as Potter's publishers failed to register the Peter Rabbit copyright in America, resulting in a spate of piracies including this by Thornton W. Burgess.  But there is also some sort of lesson in following your interests wherever they come from, whether authentic or contrived.  All writing is falling down a rabbit hole, and even if the rabbit hole was dug by a slightly different bunny.

Beatrix Potter for Adults


In April I spoke at the Los Angeles Arboretum in the appropriately named Arcadia, CA.  Whoever created the publicity on their website christened my talk "Beatrix Potter for Adults."  Here's a link, for as long as it stays active:


The title is hilarious, as Beatrix Potter was far from X-rated.  And of course, the Arboretum was differentiating this program from the next day's family-oriented activities.

The memory of my first visit to Hill Top Farm, her first garden, is golden.  It was a sunny afternoon when, with a new husband and two aged parents, I walked up the flagstone path.  (We had spent a week in Scotland with non-stop rain.)  The cottage borders embrace the path, creating a long axis to the farmhouse.   Beatrix Potter’s garden interests have a long axis as well, through her life story and through the legacy of British gardening.

Miss Potter, I salute you.