Claire Bidwell Smith

I met Aidan Donnelley Rowley, as I’ve met a lot of amazing people in my life, online. A friend told me about Aidan’s blog, and after reading it for months, and then reading her first novel, I reached out to her, sensing that she was a kindred woman I wanted to know beyond her words on my screen. We traded emails, books, and then finally met in person for the first time when I was in New York on book tour last spring.

(Taken this spring when I was the guest of one of Aidan’s Happier Hour salons.)

Aidan is one of those women who is easy to like, not because she’s pretty and intelligent and gracious (she IS all of those things), but because she is accessible. When I say accessible, I mean it in the way that has made me fall hard for my favorite people in this world. Aidan is accessible because she walks the truth of her life. She is honest about her faults, her struggles, her happiness and her desires and her doubts. She always lets you into her world and in doing so, allows you a new window into your own world.

A few years ago, Aidan began hosting a series of salons at her home in New York City, called Happier Hours. Each gathering revolves around a female author who’s work encourages discussion and growth. The premise is that we could all be happier, and that even if we can’t be happy all the time, we can strive to create moments and hours in which we are happier, hence gathering a bunch of fabulous women together to get inspired. This concept exemplifies exactly what Aidan embodies; the message that perfection is an illusion and that embracing who we are is the real key to finding true satisfaction.

Okay, enough gushing about Aidan…

The reason I’m writing this post is to say that I couldn’t be more thrilled to announce that I’m partnering with her to bring Happier Hours to the West Coast. This coming weekend I’ll be hosting the first-ever Happier Hour brunch in Los Angeles with Meredith Maran, author of Why We Write, as the first guest. The brunch will take place at the home of my friend Maria D’Angelo, president of an incredible nonprofit called The Children’s Lifesaving Foundation. Meredith’s book is a fascinating read on what it means to write, and where the drive comes from. Sure to inspire an enriching afternoon.

My life has been unduly complicated as of late, with a lot of stress and uncertainty, so I cannot tell you how very much I’m looking forward to a Happier Hour.

I couldn’t be more thrilled, or more humbled, to announce that my book is being turned into a film starring Jennifer Lawrence.

You can read about it in several places online, and I’m going to paste the official press release below.

This project has been over a year in the making so far, with Jennifer first coming on board last February. I have been consistently blown away by the incredible people who have joined the creative team alongside her — screenwriter Abi Morgan, director Susanne Bier, producer Bruce Cohen and the people at Film Nation Entertainment, all of them unbelievably talented and thoughtful individuals whom I have come to know and love, over the last year.

There is so much yet to come, but for now I will just say again that I am incredibly grateful and humbled by all of this. All I ever wanted when I wrote The Rules of Inheritance was the chance to help a person or two, to make someone out there feel a little less alone in their grief process. And now all of this…I couldn’t dream of a better group of people to help me take my message to a wider audience.

–

FILMNATION ENTERTAINMENT TO FINANCE

THE RULES OF INHERITANCE WITH

ACADEMY AWARD WINNER JENNIFER LAWRENCE ATTACHED
TO

STAR AND PRODUCE ALONGSIDE ACADEMY AWARD WINNER BRUCE COHEN


Lauded Director Susanne Bier to Helm Abi Morgan’s Script

Based on Claire Bidwell Smith’s Memoir

Los Angeles. TBC – FilmNation Entertainment will finance and handle sales for The Rules of Inheritance which will star Academy Award winner Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook, Winter’s Bone, The Hunger Games). Susanne Bier, an Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Film (In a Better World, After the Wedding and the upcoming Serena, starring Lawrence and Bradley Cooper), will direct the screenplay to be written by Abi Morgan (The Iron Lady, Shame). The film is based on Claire Bidwell Smith’s powerful and honest memoir about a young woman who loses her family but finds herself in the process.  Academy Award winning producer Bruce Cohen (Silver Linings Playbook American Beauty, Milk) and Lawrence will produce. FilmNation Entertainment will executive produce.

FilmNation’s Glen Basner and Aaron Ryder said, “We are thrilled to be working with the dream team of Jennifer Lawrence, Susanne Bier, Abi Morgan and Bruce Cohen.  We have no doubt that this inspirational and hopeful book will be turned into an emotionally powerful movie that audiences around the world will fall in love with.”

Producer Bruce Cohen commented, “Jennifer, Susanne, Abi and I are incredibly excited to be working on this extraordinary project together. We all believe this film can strike a deeply resonant chord with audiences, just as Claire’s riveting memoir has.”
Claire Bidwell Smith is an only child who, over a 7-year period as a young adult loses both her parents to cancer.  While struggling to cope, she propels herself into many romances, adventures and travels in an inspirational, emotionally charged and surprisingly humorous journey that celebrates life, the people we love and lose and the discoveries we make along the way.  Smith is represented by Wendy Sherman at Wendy Sherman Associates in association with Creative Artists Agency (CAA). The book is published by Penguin Books.

FilmNation’s EVP, Worldwide Production Allison Silver brought the project into FilmNation, which negotiated its deal with CAA.  CAA will also package the project and represent the film’s domestic distribution rights.

I know I haven’t written here in a while. There are a lot of reasons for that.

Mostly I’m just overwhelmed, and nurturing this place has fallen to the bottom of my list of obligations. I keep a pretty active daily photo diary on Instagram, but carving out time for lengthy posts just hasn’t been possible lately.

I’m hoping that this won’t be the case for too much longer, but until then, I hope you’ll bear with me.

For now, here’s a video I took of Vera on Saturday after I busted her secretly cutting her own hair in the bathroom.