Sarah understood the power of that, as well as the connection between story and land. My language of flowers grew from there, as I considered the ways we find to use our voices even when we’re not able to speak our stories. I knew from being in the gardens of the women who raised me that Australian flora often thrives under harsh conditions, in extreme landscapes and weather. Sarah and I have similar storytelling minds we’re wired in similar ways, fascinated by the things we say and the things we don’t, and why. I spent a lot of meaningful time with Sarah Lambert, writer, executive producer, and showrunner of the series, having deep-dive conversations into the characters, story, and the language of Australian native flowers that I created in the novel, which binds everything. What notes or pieces of inspiration did you share with the creators? Photography: Hugh Stewart, provided by Prime Video. Now, for The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart to take new life on screen, with the cast and production that it has… I’m aware that it’s ironic for a writer to say, nevertheless it’s still true: I really have no words.Īuthor Holly Ringland with Alycia Debnam-Carey, who plays Alice Hart. What would become of me and my life if I wrote the thing that I was most scared to write? What story would emerge, and how might it live in other people’s hearts, if it ever saw the light of day? What else can trauma be made into, other than unrememberable memories? Writing my first novel, getting it published, having it be loved by readers was one entirely mind-blowing thing. So, my research became my own call to arms, but threw up all kinds of questions.

I realized that I’d never written from the sore place.

In 2012, while researching traumatic experience and the process of writing fiction, I discovered Tom Spanbauer’s concept of “dangerous writing,” which is the idea of going into the sore place we all have inside of us and writing from that place using fiction as the lie that tells the truth. The genesis of this novel was trauma, resilience, and joy: I’ve lived with male-perpetrated violence for a lot of my life, which silenced my voice, courage, and the dream of being a writer I’ve had since I was a child. How does it feel to see your characters come to life on screen? We asked Ringland about her experience seeing the novel adapted the conversations she had with the showrunner, actors, and crew and a very cool appearance she made in the finale. The story follows Alice Hart (Alycia Debnam-Carey and Alyla Browne), who grows up on her grandmother’s (Sigourney Weaver) flower farm after losing her parents to a mysterious fire-and the answers she finds after a two-decade journey for the truth. The miniseries adaptation of Holly Ringland’s bestselling debut novel, The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart, is streaming now on Prime Video.

Alycia debnam carey