Kate Klise's "In the Bag"

As a correspondent for People magazine, Kate Klise covered everything from celebrity scandals to serial killers. After writing several bestselling children's books, Kate decided to write In the Bag, her first novel for adults, when she found a note from a fellow passenger in her carry-on bag.

Here she dreamcasts an adaptation of In the Bag:

I wrote In the Bag after watching The Holiday (Kate Winslet, Cameron Diaz, Jude Law, Jack Black) and remembering how fun a trading-places story can be.

In my book, the characters don’t trade houses. They swap suitcases—by accident. These are the two teenage characters who then begin flirting online while purportedly trying to track down their missing luggage in Paris (the 18-year-old girl) and Madrid (the 17-year-old boy).

The teenagers’ parents—both single—are clueless about their kids’ budding e-romance. Why? Because they’re too preoccupied with work. The mother (I can picture Sandra Bullock, Kate Winslet or Diane Keaton in this role) recently quit her job as chef at a fancy restaurant in Chicago. The father (I’d love to see Colin Firth, Hugh Grant, Steve Martin, or Alec Baldwin here) is a museum exhibit designer with a big show coming up titled "Love in the Post-Digital Age." He has no time to slip an admiring note in the bag of a woman (our Sandra-Kate-Diane character) he sees on an international flight. But that’s exactly what he does.

These characters will meet each other, lose each other, find each other again (in Barcelona), tick each other off (romantic partners and parents/children alike) before they realize adore each other to pieces.

But now do you see why I need either Nora Ephron (When Harry Met Sally, You’ve Got Mail) or Nancy Meyers (The Holiday, Something’s Gotta Give, It’s Complicated) to direct the movie version of this book? In the Bag is a romantic comedy about two generations, three international cities, and four major characters—all trying to find love in this post-digital world.

And it is complicated.

But not really.

It’s a feel-good story about taking chances on new relationships, even though we all know by now that falling in love can be as risky as checking a bag on a long flight—or thinking about the movie adaptation of a book a week before the pub date.

And I know exactly who I’d love to write the soundtrack: Jimmy “Wichita Lineman” Webb.

Learn more about the book and author at Kate Klise's website.

--Marshal Zeringue