Book Talk: I Have This Thing for Flowers

Book Talk: I Have This Thing for Flowers

with Alysia Li Ying Sawchyn

in conversation with Tess Fontaine

Thursday, August 13 | 5:30 - 7 pm

A story of love, marriage, and flowers from beloved writer and gardening enthusiast Alysia Li Ying Sawchyn.

Six months before her wedding, Alysia Li Ying Sawchyn’s fiancé broke off their engagement. Stunned, reeling, and newly uninsured, Alysia married her friend Sarah in an arrangement that secured them both free health insurance. They moved in together in the midst of the pandemic, and with time and while tending a garden, their marriage of convenience grew into a marriage of love.

In science, art, and mythology, we cannot help but to see flowers as metaphors for the fleeting nature of youth, vitality, and love. It’s easy to casually admire something beautiful, but it takes a discerning eye to appreciate the effort that went into nourishing and tending to that beauty. In both gardening and relationships, one cannot expect to fill your garden with flowers if you are unwilling—or unable—to put in the work they need to thrive. In I Have This Thing For Flowers, Sawchyn does just that, likening the many flowers she has grown in her gardens to a range of relationships and moments of her life, reflecting on topics from motherhood to perfumery to scientific illustration.

Cataloguing many of the great romances and loves of her life like an herbarium of flowers preserved from the garden, Sawchyn examines the kinds of love that can't be explained.

Alysia will be joined by fellow author Tess Fontaine for an in-conversation program. Malaprops will be selling books during the event and book signing will take place after the talk concludes.

Alysia Li Ying Sawchyn is a writer, editor, and educator living in Western North Carolina. Formerly the Editor-in-Chief of The Rumpus magazine, she has received fellowships from the Kenyon Review and the Sewanee Writers' Conferences. Their first essay collection, A Fish Growing Lungs, was a finalist for The Believer Book Award.

Tessa Fontaine is the author of THE ELECTRIC WOMAN: A MEMOIR IN DEATH-DEFYING ACTS (FSG 2018), a New York Times Editors' Choice; Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers pick, and best book of the year by Southern Living, Refinery29, Amazon Editors', and The New York Post. THE RED GROVE (FSG 2024), her debut novel, was named a best book by Amazon Editors’ and People Magazine and was longlisted for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize. Other writing can be found in Outside, The New York Times, Glamour, People, and more. Raised outside San Francisco, Tessa has taught in jails and prisons, community centers, and currently teaches in Warren Wilson's MFA program. She lives in Asheville, North Carolina, with her daughter, goofy dog and sassy cat.

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