The Novelist as Screenwriter

Just because you write novels doesn’t mean you can’t make it in movies.

The writers of Away We Go, Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida, have both had successful careers as novelists. Eggers gained national attention with his non-fiction novel A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and Vida’s 2003 novel And Now You Can Go, about a young woman confronting a horrific incident, won high praise from book critics across the country. And now the two, who are also married (to each other), have lapsed into cinema. But they are not alone in their straying. The history of cinema is filled with excellent writers who, for one reason or another, suddenly find themselves writing screenplays. The following slide show chronicles the fictions, films and follies of some those poor writers.