Debut!

I found another one of my old magazine's, Writer's Digest, and found a piece with Erica Kennedy. I actually remember when her book came out because I saw it everywhere. From what it said, it's supposed to be made into a movie, but I haven't seen it or maybe it's been out and I haven't noticed.

31 year old Erica Kennedy’s debut book is Bling!

Debut book: Bling (Miramax, June 2004) a novel described as “a hip hop version of Pygmalion”

Time Frame: “I started my book in April 2002—the day after going to a media panel called ‘How to Start Your Novel.’ Halfway through the process, I got writer’s block; 3 months later, it miraculously lifted. My book sold in August 2003.”

Secret To Success: “Reviewers have called my book ‘genre-defying.’ Honestly, that’s because I didn’t know what I was doing. “I’d never written fiction. I read the Elements of Fiction book series and a ton of commercial fiction, and I just wrote in a way that felt good to me.”

Pet Peeve: “I have a moral objection to almost all chick lit, because it’s usually about neurotic, self-deprecating women how to turn themselves inside out to get a man. That offends me.”

Writer’s Digest 7/2004
07/04/08 9:20pm

Novelist, Sandra Brown, Cuts First Movie Deal

By Gregg Goldstein Thu Mar 20, 2:46 AM ET

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - For the first time in her 27-year career, best-selling novelist Sandra Brown has made a movie deal.

TwinStar Entertainment has purchased the option on her 1996 legal thriller "The Witness."
The story centers on idealistic public defender Kendall Deaton, who discovers a dark secret in the forest near her small South Carolina town. It leads her to turn state's witness against her white supremacist ex-husband and father-in-law as she struggles to discover whom she can trust.

Brown, who has written 56 New York Times best-sellers and has 70 million copies of her books in print, has turned down several offers to adapt her books over the years.

"Some excellent books have been made into excellent movies, but just as often the film renditions were bad," she said. "For decades I've been developing a 'voice' my readers recognize and expect." She said that TwinStar executive vice president Lane Shefter Bishop, who will serve as one of the producers of the film, "approached me with a full understanding and appreciation of that voice."

The film will be one of the first features from TwinStar, which owns a library of original stories and options on film and literary properties aimed at a wide audience.
Reuters/Hollywood Reporter