by Molly Gilmore for OLY ARTS
Could Border Songs be on its way to becoming a TV show by acclaimed Canadian screenwriter Graeme Manson, the man behind the award-winning BBC series Orphan Black?
It’s taken the first step. Last week, Olympia novelist Jim Lynch announced that Manson purchased an option for TV and movie rights for the 2009 novel about life in a town on the border of the U.S. and Canada.
Lynch is excited that a writer he admires is interested in his work. “I think that as a Canadian writer, Graeme sees Border Songs as a way to explore the rarely dramatized U.S.-Canadian border relations,” he said in an email interview.
“I’ve had a beer with Graeme,” he said, “and I really like his ideas for a TV show based on Border Songs.”
But it’s too early to start mentally casting the role of quirky Border Patrol agent Brandon Vanderkool. The distance from selling an option to seeing a show on TV or as a movie in theaters is a long one. Manson’s option will expire in 18 months.
“It’s like somebody has agreed to go out on a first date,” Lynch said. “The chance of that date leading to marriage is about the odds of an option leading to a movie or TV show.”
Indeed, this is the second time he’s sold an option for Border Songs; an earlier one expired unused. He also sold an option for The Highest Tide, his 2005 first novel.
Lynch is also hoping to sell an option for his latest, Before the Wind. Meanwhile, Olympia playwright Bryan Willis, who adapted Border Songs into a play for Seattle’s Book-It Repertory Theatre, is working on a screenplay adaptation.
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To order and read Lynch’s books, visit the Jim Lynch Page at Browsers Books. You can also visit the author’s website, JimLynchBooks.com.