In From the Night: Premiering Sunday, April 23 on CBS. Five years ago, I enrolled in a personal essay class at Rice University. The instructor, Dr. Marsha Recknagel was a Louisiana native, and at the time, Dr. Recknagel was finishing her memoir, If Nights Could Talk. The memoir recounts Recknagel's strained relationship with her family and the experience of adopting her sixteen year old nephew, Jamie. Jamie shuffled through schools and hospitals before finally landing on Marsha's doorstep in Houston. It's a fantastic book, and it has received numerous accolades and awards, including an LA Times Notable Book of the Year award. Marsha was also on the shortlist for the Penn/Faulkner award. Next week, the movie, starring Oscar-winning actress Marcia Gay Hardin, will premiere on CBS, and I am attempting to spread the good news. Watch it! Get the family together! Tell them that the movie is about someone from Louisiana! In fact, the whole family is from Louisiana! Shreveport, to be precise. Marsha is one of my best friends in the world, and until recently, she's been reluctant to tell people that this movie is about her. But she's finally giving the okay... and I promised her I'd help promote it. If anyone has any questions for Marsha, feel free to send them to me... and I'll forward them over to her. It's really rare that someone you know has a movie made about their life. It's even more rare when this someone is your mentor and one of your best friends. Almost every word of the movie is lifted directly from the pages of her book. I promise: You won't be disappointed.

This entry was posted by Blogger, on Friday, April 14, 2006.