How a Book Becomes a Hollywood Movie
Glenn Stout, author of Young Woman and the Sea, shares the process behind researching and writing the book—and how it became a Hollywood movie.
The series editor of Best American Sports Writing and author, editor, or ghostwriter of more than 100 books, Glenn Stout is one of the most prolific writers—and generous editorial mentors—I know. When his book got optioned, I was excited to see, through the eyes of a friend, how a book becomes a Hollywood movie.
First published in 2009, Young Woman and the Sea tells the story of Trudy Ederle, the first woman to swim the English Channel. Fifteen years later, in 2024, the feature film starring Daisy Ridley was released by Disney in theaters and on Disney Plus. It was a long and roller-coastery journey. I asked him to share a few insights about his research and writing process, as well as the process of adaptation and theatrical release.
How did you find this story? What gave you confidence you could turn it into a book?
When I published The Best American Sports Writing of the Century with David Halberstam in 2000, we recognized the characters and authors skewed heavily male. We envisioned a similar book that could feature overlooked female athletes, female sportswriters, or both. I began casting about for those stories in older magazines and newspapers. Meanwhile, I was poking around in microfilm newspapers to research a historical baseball book. (There were virtually no newspaper databases back then, so I scanned A LOT of microfilm.)
In the microfilm I kept encountering stories about an American teenager named “Gertrude Ederle.” She was the first woman to swim the English Channel, and I was surprised to learn that she had beaten the existing record—held by a man—BY TWO HOURS! I started collecting stories about her, and stories about her written by women, including Julia Harpman, a pioneering female journalist who wrote for the New York Daily News.
