So I started my first book with my main character lost in an enchanted forest being pursued by a witch. In the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm, the enchanted forest is often used to represent confusion and uncertainty. But the core of the dilemma is the same – in a world with so much noise, so many people telling me who I should be and what I should do – who am I really? Instead of social media and LED billboards and branded content, my protagonist is dealing with witches and dragons and trolls. Pennyroyal Academy is all about a girl finding out who she is and where she fits in. Quiet the real world down and go into a fictional world where you can think and feel deeply. So this might be more an advertisement for books in general than for mine in particular, but I think it’s vitally important for girls, and boys too for that matter, to be able to have that experience, and to have it as often as possible. I remember vividly from my childhood how quiet it can be to open a book and disappear inside it for a while. I find it totally overwhelming, so I can’t even imagine how kids can possibly process it all. Larson: All of us are bombarded by so much messaging these days. TMS: Why do you think a story like this is so important for young girls? All I know is that I want to have my Hitchcock-style cameo as a troll. A lot of films lately have had huge success finding relatively unknown actors to fill the lead roles, so that could definitely be a possibility. As for the lead role, it’s tricky because Cadet Evie is around fifteen years old. Reese is attached both as producer and to play the role of the Fairy Drillsergeant, so hopefully some day soon we’ll see her two inches tall screaming in girls’ faces. Once I started treating it like its own entity, rather than a literal adaptation of the book, then it became a lot more enjoyable to write.

But it was also kind of fun to mix the story up and find new, more economical ways of dramatizing things. There’s a screenwriter named Calder Willingham who said that adapting your own novel is like performing an appendectomy on yourself. I was lucky enough to get to write the adaptation of the first book.

Larson: The movie is set up at Lionsgate.

Pennyroyal academy books