{"id":495,"date":"2013-07-27T15:35:51","date_gmt":"2013-07-27T05:35:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/veritysparks.com\/?p=495"},"modified":"2013-07-27T15:39:24","modified_gmt":"2013-07-27T05:39:24","slug":"rosie-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/?p=495","title":{"rendered":"ROSIE PROJECT"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"rosie\"<\/a>Graeme Simpsion, author of the best-selling romantic comedy The Rosie Project<\/em>, came to Castlemaine Library last Thursday evening to give a talk. I was there to sell books for Stoneman’s Bookroom, and though I wasn’t unduly grumpy about getting home at 8.45 pm, there were other places I’d rather be on a cold winter’s night after a day at work. Such as on the couch.
\nAs it turned out, it was a funny and entertaining evening, and Graeme himself was a delightful speaker. Plus, he was up-front and eager to sell books – meeting and greeting happily, and even producing a selection of pens in different colours to do the signing – so I was kept gratifyingly busy in my official salesperson role.<\/p>\n

The Rosie Project<\/em> was originally a screenplay, and one of Graeme’s inspirations for the story was the wisecracking ‘screwball’ comedies of the 1930s. Movies like Bringing Up<\/em> Baby<\/em>, The Philadelphia Story<\/em> and His Girl Friday<\/em> – battles of the sexes, where male and female were equally matched and fiercely intelligent –\u00a0 and the sparkling dialogue was so fast-paced that it resembled table-tennis on speed. I love those films and spent (or wasted, depending on your viewpoint) many an hour with Bill Collins and his classic movies. My favourite is The Lady Eve<\/em>, with Henry Fonda as naive herpetologist millionaire and Barbara Stanwyck as an alluring lady card-sharp. There’s something so appealing about a gorgeous yet clueless male! Simpsion absolutely got that, because his Asperger’s-y hero Don is, whilst socially inept and hopeless with women, a karate expert and fitness fanatic –\u00a0 thus totally buff. He’s a fabulous cook as well.<\/p>\n

Graeme told us that having finished the screenplay (which won major awards) he tried to get funding for the film. But with no success. He asked a producer friend if a novel of The<\/em> Rosie Project<\/em> would help sell the movie. The answer was yes. And so in an amazingly short time (did he really say 7 weeks?) he had a polished draft. And (this story is nothing but fast-paced) in next to no time, he had a published novel that is selling like hot cakes in Australia, is published or about to be published in a number of other countries as well – and a movie deal with Sony in the US. As Graeme chortled a number of times, he’s living the dream.<\/p>\n

Which was really endearing. The chortling, I mean. He’s had a fantastic run with the deals and money and the prizes and the success, but he’s so happy and thrilled about them all that I’d have to say I felt happy and thrilled for him too. And Rosie<\/em> is a lovely book. It’s genuinely heart-warming and sweet-natured and, as Robyn Annear said when she introduced him, it’s a genre-bender. A romantic comedy with brains, heart and soul. I can’t wait for the movie. I just wish they could bring back Henry Fonda and Barbara Stanwyck.<\/p>\n

\"eve\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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Graeme Simpsion, author of the best-selling romantic comedy The Rosie Project, came to Castlemaine Library last Thursday evening to give a talk. I was there to sell books for Stoneman’s Bookroom, and though I wasn’t unduly grumpy about getting home … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=495"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":498,"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495\/revisions\/498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}