It began with a spell. And a painting.
A few years ago, I met Denise Di Novi through my witchy best friend, Elise Loehnen. We were at a spiritual retreat, and I happened to sit beside her. I fell under her spell immediately. I did not know Denise had produced so many films I loved growing up: Heathers, Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and PRACTICAL MAGIC. Half my imagination, it turned out, had passed through her hands.
After her husband died, Denise began painting feverishly. It was as though grief had opened a secret door. One painting was called “Richard’s Garden.” I bought it from her gallery and see it every morning. It reminds me that grief does not always harden us. Sometimes it turns us toward action.
Last winter, while Freeway, my soulmate dog, was undergoing cancer treatment, I sat beside him finishing my new book, PLEASURE PRINCIPLES—overwhelmed with sadness and overhydrated on midnight margaritas. That was when I wrote about plant magic: Mugwort, Mandrake, Liquorice, Clove, Fennel, and the long history of plants that frightened people because they changed the way we felt.
Just as I finished, Denise told me PRACTICAL MAGIC 2 was filming in London and wanted Flamingo Estate involved. I was terrified of doing it badly. It could have become a novelty or a cheap movie souvenir. I wanted the opposite: to return magic to the Earth, the apothecary, and the people who know how to coax transformation from roots, flowers, and fire. So we made the most impractical thing we could think of: old magic, made properly.
