Originally posted Monday, November 25, 2019 by RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com on his AJC Radio & TV Talk blog
Former Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams has entered the world of TV production thanks to her 2004 crime/romance novel "Never Tell."
According to Deadline.com, CBS has placed in development a script based on Abrams' fictional book, which is under her fictional name Selena Montgomery.
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Being in “development” doesn’t guarantee the project will ever see the light of day. The script has to be cleared by CBS head honchos to become a pilot, then a TV series.
The "Never Tell" script will be written by Talicia Raggs ("NCIS: New Orleans" "The Originals").
The initial plot set up: “A star linguistics professor with a complicated past who joins forces with a charismatic online investigative journalist following the discovery of a cryptic message that is the only clue in a missing persons case, setting them off on a partnership working cases with the New Orleans Police Department.”
Abrams wrote several romance novels under the Montgomery name in the 2000s with suggestive titles such as "Hidden Sins" and "Secrets and Lies." She wrote a serious non-fiction book in 2018 under her real name called "Minority Leader: How to Lead from the Outside and Make Real Change" that came out while she was running for governor.
For this CBS project, Abrams receives an "executive producer" credit though that title can range from honorary to advisory to super hands on. PatMa Productions, led by former CBS chairwoman Nina Tassler and Denise Di Novi will oversee the project. PatMa was launched in 2018 to offer up more diverse voices in entertainment. CBS has an ownership stake in PatMa.
Abrams' TV tastes are eclectic. In an interview with the AJC last year, she said she watches a lot of television. She name-checked everything from UPN's "Star Trek Voyager" (1995-2001) and the CW's "Supernatural" (2005-present) to NBC's quirky "The Good Place" (2016-present) and a light-hearted TNT drama "Leverage" (2008-2012).
