The coming-of-age story follows 12-year-old orphan, Cameron, as she discovers her lesbianism living in rural Montana in the early 1990s, and is subsequently sent to an ex-gay conversion camp by her conservative aunt.
“It’s incredibly exciting,” Emily told GO of the adaptation. “It’s been a total delight.” A fan of Desiree’s work in 2011-2012 web series “The Slope”, Emily said she and co-writer Cecilia Frugiuele have been “wonderful to work with and very inclusive of my voice in this process.”
“[They’re] super committed to telling Cam’s story well while, necessarily, streamlining it for feature length,” Emily said. “It’s been a dream working with them both and they’ve gone out of their way to include me as much as possible.”
“The Miseducation of Cameron Post” received high praise from critics and fans, and also went through some controversy after it was removed from a Delaware high school summer reading list. The National Coalition Against Censorship then held a contest, asking for Delaware students to submit essays to the school board on why having books like “Cameron Post” is important and necessary. (They were “overwhelmed” by submissions.)
Emily is working as a consultant to the film, having talked with Desiree and Cecilia about the film for the last few years. It was announced Friday that Chloe Grace Moretz (“Carrie,” “The Fifth Wave”) would play the titular role.
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“All I can say is that I’ve loved this book from the first sentence,” Desiree told GO. “My girlfriend at the time told me I should turn it into a film one day and it felt wildly ambitious at the time, but now that it’s come together I can’t think of a more relevant heartfelt story. I could not be more proud of this film or the team I’m making it with.”
“It’s been amazing watching it come together,” Emily said, “and I’m urging everyone to send advance tickets to Mike Pence.”
Emily is currently working on her follow-up to “Cameron Post;” another YA novel called “Side Talked With Girls” that takes place in Los Angeles and Maine. Named after “an advice book for young women published at the tail-end of the 19th century,” Emily said “Side Talked With Girls” touched on “the dangers of familiar friends” and “girls speaking with too much slang, dressing in too masculine a manner.”
“Rather coincidentally, it’s about the making of a controversial historical queer teen film,” she said. “I swear I was working on it before all of this happened—I swear, ask my editor!”
“The Miseducation of Cameron Post” also stars Sasha Lane, John Gallagher Jr., Forrest Goodluck and Jennifer Ehle and is being produced by Beachside (“Tig) and Parkville Pictures, who also produced Desiree’s 2013 feature “Appropiate Behavior.”
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