Some of the most binge-worthy TV series today are based off of existing books — and according to the panelists of the Bestseller to Binge-Worthy: Inside the Art of Page-to-Screen Storytelling panel, presented by Peacock and Universal Studio Group, authors of optioned books should feel empowered to help guide those adaptations.
Sitting for TheWrap’s 2025 Power Women Summit, presented by STARZ #TakeTheLead, to discuss the process of turning a book into a show from both a producer perspective and as the author, EP Ali Krug described it as a “gift and a joy” when authors want to step up during the adaptation process. That surprised author Andrea Mara, who wrote the book “All Her Fault,” the adaptation of which she associate produced at Peacock.
“I sort of invented this thing where I imagined Carnival, the production company, and Megan, the screenwriter, possibly being worried that I was going to be one of those authors who would expect it to be this, that, and the other, and don’t change this,” Mara admitted. “I thought I really went too far the opposite way of going, ‘You do your thing, you guys are the experts in making TV. I am not, so I’m just going to watch from the sidelines.’ It’s actually really nice to hear that you might like authors being involved.”
Kate Myers – the author of “Excavations” and co-executive producer on its adaptation starring Amy Poehler, “Dig” – admitted she had a similar thought when visiting the show’s writers’ room last month. It wasn’t until she was sat down and asked a bunch of questions about her story that she remembered she was the expert in the room.
“I was in the writers’ room visiting with the team, and I mean, I’m not going to tell Amy Poehler and Mike Schur anything about making television. They don’t need my wisdom on that front,” she said. “But it was great to be in the room. I had a similar attitude, but I was there for a really long time, because they had a lot of questions – and I was like, ‘Oh right, I know so much about this.’ You are the expert of your own world when you write a book.”
“I think in a perfect world, the novel or the piece of IP and the show can live side-by-side and one doesn’t cannibalize the other,” Krug said. “There’s been a lot of successful adaptations where that’s the case – ‘Game of Thrones’ is a really good example. And you know, when we take meetings, to see if there’s a fit to collaborate, we ask them what they want the process to be like. Some authors want to be heavily involved, others just say, ‘Go with God, best of luck.’
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— TheWrap (@TheWrap) December 2, 2025
Bestseller to Binge-Worthy: Inside the Art of Page-to-Screen Storytelling presented by Peacock and Universal Studio Group
Dive into the projects of Ali Krug (“The Five Star Weekend”), Andrea Mara (“All Her Fault”), and Kate Myers (“Excavations”). pic.twitter.com/6KkM9CrgDn
“But there’s so much that doesn’t end up in the novel and is sort of left on the cutting room floor, and that’s just such great resource for the screenwriter,” Krug, the Emmy-nominated producer of Apple TV’s “The Changeling, which was based on the novel by Victor LaValle, continued. “So the hope is, obviously, to always take the spirit of the book and to keep and maintain the integrity of the book, and expand on it and have it evolve.”
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