Writer/Producer Elizabeth Ridley
Saving Sadie: How a Dog That No One Wanted Inspired the World, published by Citadel/Kensington, September 27, 2017!
HANDLE WITH CARE (in pre-production)
Written and produced by Elizabeth Ridley
Full-length independent feature film
A warm-hearted family drama about a British-born English Lit professor now living in Milwaukee who struggles to connect with his adult son during a chaotic holiday season while also dealing with a long-buried secret of his own.
We are thrilled to announce that acclaimed Oscar-nominated British actor Peter Firth has signed a letter of interest to play the lead in Handle With Care!
DEAR MR. CARSON
A Novel by Elizabeth Ridley
The year is 1978 and 13-year-old Wilma "Sunnie" Sundstrom flees a fat camp in Northern Minnesota to travel by bus across America in hopes of reaching California and meeting her idol, Tonight Show host Johnny Carson, in this light-hearted look at love, loss, and growing up.
Published by The Permanent Press, New York, 2006.
THE REMARKABLE JOURNEY OF MISS TRANBY QUIRKE
A Novel by Elizabeth Ridley
London, 1909: Thirty-four-year-old spinster Tranby Quirke has spent her life being invisible. Her days are spent toiling in obscurity, lecturing to modern women—mainly to please old-fashioned men—on subjects ranging from Removing Dry Rot to Proper Cutlery Positioning. Tranby is deeply frustrated. She suppresses her sexual urges, secretly supports the suffrage movement, and embarks on worldwide adventures—but only inside her head. Then she meets the beautiful nineteen-year-old Lysette McDonald and love enters her life. A love that Tranby's heart and soul struggle to accommodate. A love whose name Tranby can only dare to speak after she takes the most remarkable journey of all.
Published in the UK by Virago Press/Little, Brown & Co., 1996; first American edition published by Bold Strokes Books, NY, 2009.
RAINEY’S LAMENT
A Novel by Elizabeth Ridley
Bright, self-confident, redheaded Rainey McBride is born in a crowded gym locker room after a high school basketball game. Abandoned by her teenage mother to be raised in Milwaukee by her stern Scandinavian grandparents, Rainey’s longing for love and affection is fulfilled by her exotic second cousin Ambrose Torsten Dienst, a stylish, wealthy, would-be Danish prince embodying all the grace and glamour missing from Rainey's stolid suburban life.
Following their dramatic first encounter at a Thanksgiving dinner in 1979, Rainey and Ambrose become blood brothers and swear their souls to protecting each other, a solemn vow that leads to devastating consequences years later, as Rainey's quest to experience and understand the nature of grief is shockingly realized.
Published in the UK by Virago Press/Little, Brown & Co., 1998; published in Turkey in Turkish language edition by GENDAS publishers 1998; American hardcover edition published by The Overlook Press, NY, 1999.
THROWING ROSES
A Novel by Elizabeth Ridley
Following a serious automobile accident, 17-year-old Branda Raggan awakens in the hospital a stranger within her own skin. Therapy for her injuries has little effect, so the doctors send her home with her mother, Margaret, a hard-drinking, tough-talking former country-and-western singer who runs the local tavern, The Bloody Mary, above which she and Branda make their home. After Branda is unable to adjust to her old way of life during the heat of a Milwaukee midsummer, her mother sends her on a package tour to London especially designed for people with "special needs." Branda flees the group soon after arrival and is rescued by Lady Sabrina, a six-foot-five-inch transvestite nightclub performer and part-time puppeteer who provides Branda with a warm bed, clean towels, endless cups of jasmine tea, and just enough encouragement to get her life back on track.
Published by The Permanent Press, New York, 1993
Books and Screenplays
