Tasmanian author Robbie Arnott has had a busy June.
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As well as a new book hitting shelves - The Rain Heron - a project to turn his debut novel into a TV series has received Screen Tasmania development funding.
Flames, released in 2018, is a magical Tasmanian adventure that took the literary world by storm - scoring a nomination for the coveted Miles Franklin Award along with other accolades.
Now, the novel could appear on the small screen.
Marieke Hardy - author, screenwriter, and former director of the Melbourne Writers Festival - has signed on as showrunner for the TV series under Jungle Entertainment, the production company behind successful Australian series No Activity and The Moodys.
Hardy said she was so enraptured by the book when she first read it she reached out to Arnott to share her compliments.
When she was contacted by the production company about the possibility of showrunning a Flames series, it was a classic case of serendipity.
"When I was contacted by Jungle I think I started screaming, which I think probably showed by unbridled enthusiasm for the project," she said.
Arnott's beautiful writing, the strong sense of place and the natural world, and the thread of magical realism that threads through the narrative were what made her such a supporter of Flames.
"I've given it to a couple of people as presents - it's one of those books," she said.
The narrative of Flames takes place across Tasmania, with key scenes at a fictional wombat farm at Melaleuca in the south-west wilderness, Notley Fern Gorge in the Tamar Valley, Cradle Mountain National Park, and Hawley on the north coast - where a fisherman and his seal best friend hunt gigantic sea creatures.
There are animal gods and magical fire - taking the story from the page to the screen will be no small feat.
Arnott said he "thinks it will need a lot of CGI."
"And it will all have to be shot in Tasmania - I'd be very surprised if any of it was shot anywhere else," he said.
"The structure of the book will probably have to change quite a lot to fit into a six-part series, but I'm excited to see where we go next.
"I can't wait to see the different parts of Tasmania being filmed, and seeing them beamed all around different parts of the country - and possibly even beyond."
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Hardy said the aim will be to make a "visually satisfying" adaption of the novel: "There's potentially going to be an opportunity for us to maintain all those beautiful elements of Robbie's book, and breathe further oxygen into them," she said.
"I'm so respectful of the original work - we wouldn't be there without the original work - and I want it to be a collaborative experience. I only want Robbie to feel like his work is being enhanced rather than turned into something that he's not comfortable with."
Arnott will be a story consultant on the series, and he said he trusts the team to bring his novel to life.
"I'm not going to get in the way of the experts - I'm a huge fan of Marieke, so I'll just chip in where and if I can," he said.
The $20,000 funding from Screen Tasmania will go towards the writing of the script for the project, with Hardy, Arnott, and the rest of the writer's room meeting soon to begin hashing out what the story will look like on screen.
"There's still a lot of steps to go yet, but it's pretty exciting that it's gotten through the first stage," Arnott said.
In the meantime, Arnott is basking in the glow of the positive reviews for The Rain Heron - an eco-fable set in a fictional, magical dystopia - and working on his next book, to be entirely set within the Tamar Valley.