A List Without Misery… By Ripley Proserpina

This week we had one of those days where the weather was cool, and it was gray, and even though the leaves are still green, I can see what’s about to happen.

Fall.

If you haven’t guessed it by now, I dread winter. Sometimes, when the snow is falling and I’m cuddly warm inside and I have tea and my cats, I love it.

But it is so looooooooong. For every pretty day, there’s one where it hurts to breath. The sun shines and I think, oh, sunny! I’ll go outside. 

In the words of Admiral Akbar,

Sunny days in winter are the coldest days.

So I started thinking about movies for those rainy and inevitably cold days. AND THEN, I started thinking about my favorite movies about writers and writing.

Without further ado, my favorite movies about writers and writing in no particular order.

Bright Star… I literally swoon over the poetry of John Keats. And the ending? I’m still recovering.

Not Another Happy Ending… I love this Scottish film featuring Karen Gillan (aka Nebula from Guardians of the Galaxy). She’s a writer with a board full of rejections, who finally finds a publisher. This movie is choke-full of scenes where she argues with her editor about her writing.

Shakespeare in Love… Remember this one? From the long long ago? I think Gwyneth Paltrow is like eighteen or something. It’s about Shakespeare. There are plays. Dancing. THE QUEEN. Young Adult… Charlize Theron plays a grown-up mean girl who is a ghost writer for a popular middle-grade series. I don’t know what it is about this movie, it’s definitely not feel-good, but Theron’s character is one of my favorites.

 Julie and Julia… The story about a writer who blogs about her attempt to make every recipe in Julia Child’s cookbook. One of the few excellent book to movie adaptations I’ve seen. And the butter!!! The wine!! Meryl Streep!