Exploring the Smokies Through Willa's Eyes

Author Robert Beatty introduced a generation of readers to Asheville’s Biltmore Estate, the setting for his wildly popular Serafina novels. Now, he’s shining a similar light on the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It’s where the action in his latest novel, Willa of the Wood, takes place. This novel is set to debut July 10. 

Willa, a 12-year-old forest girl, is a member of an ancient race called the Faeren. “They’ve been there as long as the trees have been there. Even the Cherokees refer to them as the old ones,” said Beatty at his home office in Fletcher, North Carolina.

Willa finds herself in threatening situations from the very beginning—it’s definitely a page turner with many surprising twists and turns. Beatty expertly weaves his intricate fictional plot with real-life places and historical events, connecting them through mystery, magic, and his character’s personal growth. 

 “In that time period, there’s a lot of change in the Smoky Mountains,” said Beatty. “The homesteaders—European pioneers—are trying to live in the forest. The Cherokee have been severely disrupted by the presence of the Europeans, but the relationship between those two groups is basically stable in 1900. The big thing is that the industrial loggers have come in from the North. They come in with their trains and their machines and their steam-powered logging machines and it’s creating great disruption to the forest, which is Willa’s world. In all this conflict, Willa has to figure out where she fits into it all.

“She has a very insular view of the world,” he said. “She thinks the whole world is mountains because she’s never been outside the mountains, and she can’t imagine a world that isn’t mountains. She views human beings as evil because they cut down trees. She views animals as almost sacred. She views trees and rivers and rocks as almost having souls. She’s very connected to the forest. She doesn’t trust the people who aren’t. That’s one of the ways she learns and grows and begins to change.”

How Many Shades of Green? 

While the book is targeted to a middle school audience, its intricate plot line appeals to adults as well; especially those in the Great Smoky Mountain region who will recognize the setting of the story as well as references to other real places. Clingmans Dome is the locale for most of the action, but Willa knows it as “The Great Mountain.” Beatty also weaves in mentions of Gatlinburg and Cades Cove, the blue ghost fireflies of the Smokies, and a Cherokee legend about “The Hidden Lake of the Bears.” It’s a place that’s real in Willa’s world, but it exists in our real world only as a story of lore. 

“As I was exploring the maps of the area and the physical area, I encountered a place called Dead Hollow that’s on the maps but it’s not a physical spot that people could go to and find a sign that says ‘Dead Hollow,’” Beatty said. “It’s basically just a hollow or a cove in the mountains, but not a destination people could get to. When I saw that name and saw where it was, I decided to make that an important element in the story. Willa’s people—her clan—live in a place called Dead Hollow.”

Beatty crafts the books under the expert counsel of his wife and three daughters: 18-year-old Camille, 16-year-old Genevieve and six-year-old Elizabeth. They provide him with ideas, critique his chapters and serve as his muses. Camille helped him research Willa’s world as they went on information-gathering excursions together in the Smokies. 

“When Camille and I were in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, we talked about how Eskimos have about 30 different words for snow. They don’t just have one word like we do,” he said. “They have words for wet snow, thick snow, icy snow—but they are all different actual words. We were talking about how important language is in how we think and so we wanted to incorporate that into Willa and the way she thinks. She encounters a human being and they have a discussion.”

Willa points to a dark green tree and asks the man to name its color. “Green,” he answered. She then asked him to name the color of a tree sporting a lighter hue of leaves. “It’s green,” he said again. “But to her it’s a different color,” explained Beatty. “When she looks out at all this vegetation, she sees 50 different colors of green, each of which has a discreet word. That’s the kind of little stories that are within the larger Willa story.” 

Love of the Mountains

During the development of the story and the writing process, Beatty says he stayed in touch with the Friends of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, The Great Smoky Mountains Association and the National Park Service. “There’s no official relationship, per se, but we want to work in unison with their missions—education, respect for the natural environment, etc.,” Beatty said. “We are in the process of figuring out appropriate joint events and how we can further work together,” he said.

“It takes many, many hours to write a novel, so I know I need to write about things I love and things I feel passionately about,” he said. “I write about the forest and the mountains because I love those things. I write about hawks and wolves and animals because I love those things. I write about the relationship between a daughter and a father because I love that. It inspires me and I want to learn more about it and be the best I can be in that so writing is a form of expressing that love.”

Readers are introduced to the history of the region, clear cutting, the issues of environmental protection, wildlife protection, foraging for food and knowing that some items, like certain mushrooms, can be toxic, and the self-sustaining lifestyle of homesteaders They gain a heightened sense of the forest through Willa’s eyes, knowledge and experience. 

Beatty has produced a “Willa of the Wood” map to provide readers with a blueprint for exploring Willa’s world. He has a map for his Serafina novels as well. He makes them available at book signings and also puts them in the racks at visitor centers.