Amy Shearn's "Dear Edna Sloane"

Amy Shearn is the award-winning author of the novels Unseen City, The Mermaid of Brooklyn, and How Far Is the Ocean From Here. She has worked as an editor at Medium, JSTOR, Conde Nast, and other organizations, and has taught creative writing at NYU, Sackett Street Writers Workshop, Gotham Writers Workshops, Catapult, Story Studio Chicago, The Resort LIC, and the Yale Writers' Workshop. Shearn's work has appeared in many publications including the New York Times Modern Love column, Slate, Poets & Writers, Literary Hub, Real Simple, Martha Stewart Living, O: The Oprah Magazine, and Coastal Living. She has an MFA from the University of Minnesota, and lives in Brooklyn with her two children.

Here Shearn dreamcasts an adaptation of her new novel, Dear Edna Sloane:

I hadn’t thought about this until you asked me this question and then my brain immediately screamed Olivia Colman, duh. Olivia Colman would be great as Edna Sloane – the way she can be so funny and also have such depth of emotion, how she’s at once totally unafraid of looking or seeming any particular way, and at the same time is so sexy. A slightly unhinged Colman, playing deep smoldering rage frosted with brilliance and wit, that’s what we’re wanting here.

For Seth, we’re going to need Josh O’Connor, from The Durrells in Corfu and apparently some other more famous things as well. In that show, though, he plays a Lawrence Durrell who is at once totally charming and totally obnoxious, which I would think would be just right for dear old Seth. And he has the slightly bird-like look I imagine Seth has.

It’s a small role, but I’m going to need Anna Baryshnikov to be Kim, Seth’s would-be love interest. Because that character could easily seem a little, I don’t know, #basic, but that actress would imbue her with a zany hotness I think she needs.

This is going to be a great film, wow.

Visit Amy Shearn's website.

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--Marshal Zeringue