Surf writers Mark Smith and Madelaine Dickie hope to catch a wave at Adaptable

Novelists and contributors to Lines to the Horizon Mark Smith and Madelaine Dickie have both made the longlist for Adaptable, a program which seeks material from Australian and New Zealand writers for film or television adaptations. If successful, they’ll get the opportunity to pitch their work to screen industry professionals.

Madelaine Dickie, who submitted her novel Troppo, said she wrote the book imagining it for the screen with David Wenham playing the villain, Shane, and Mark Occhilupo as his surfing stunt double. She said, ‘This screen dream might not be as far-fetched as it seems … I’ll be thinking of a creative way to sell the motorbike chases, the dancing monkeys, the draining right-hand barrels, the chick who grazed her boobs off on the reef, the malaria-glazed eyes, the disappeared girls, the thunderous wet-season storms … Bloody hell. If Troppo was a film, I’d watch it for sure!’

And so would we! Adaptable is run by Queensland Writers Centre. The shortlist will be announced on 5 March 2021 and the pitching will begin in May.

Troppo won the 2016 City of Fremantle Hungerford Award. It’s available in all good bookstores and online.