Actors and other celebrities who are really good fiction writers
I was at the library and saw "Bonfire," a novel by Krysten Ritter, which had a rave blurb from Gillian Gaar (Gone Girl), so I picked it up. What the hell.
It turned out Krysten really could write, and not with help from a ghost; it was a solid suspense novel that kept me guessing. It would be a terrific miniseries — secrets of a small town, etc.
What other celebrities can actually write fiction well without help? I know Stacey Abrams published a bunch of romances under a pen name before moving to legal thrillers under her own name. There have to be others.
| by Anonymous | reply 18 | July 31, 2025 2:20 PM
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Was it all Ritter or was there a “with” in the byline? Or even a different name on the copyright page?
| by Anonymous | reply 2 | July 31, 2025 1:10 AM
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Susanna Hoffs. Her novel This Bird Has Flown was a fun read.
| by Anonymous | reply 4 | July 31, 2025 1:13 AM
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[quote]Was it all Ritter or was there a “with” in the byline? Or even a different name on the copyright page?
No, it was all her and her copyright. There was a book club discussion in the back where she mentioned she'd sold several pilots over the years.
While I was typing that, I thought of another acting fiction writer: Meg Tilly, who has published several novels.
| by Anonymous | reply 5 | July 31, 2025 1:16 AM
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I have no interest in romance novels, but I enjoyed Meg Tilly’s channel during the pandemic. She’d sit sipping tea surrounded by her books and tell stories. Her sister Jennifer popped in at one point.
| by Anonymous | reply 7 | July 31, 2025 1:19 AM
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Goodreads disagrees with all of you.
| by Anonymous | reply 8 | July 31, 2025 1:22 AM
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Go to the kids/young adult section and you'll find wildly-successful series by Henry Winkler (Happy Days) and Chris Colfer (Glee).
| by Anonymous | reply 9 | July 31, 2025 1:36 AM
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[quote]a rave blurb from Gillian Gaar (Gone Girl)
Who dat?
| by Anonymous | reply 10 | July 31, 2025 1:48 AM
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Paul McCartney has written a kids' book. IDK how good it is.
Richard Osman, best known from the UK quiz show Pointless, has sold millions of copies of his Thursday Murder Club series, the first of which has just been filmed by Chris Columbus.
Will Smith, showrunner of Slow Horses, was/is a comedian and actor (he was in The Thick of It).
I second Jesse Eisenberg. A Real Pain was undoubtedly the best of the recent Best Picture Oscar nominees, especially if you exclude Wicked for being a first half.
| by Anonymous | reply 12 | July 31, 2025 6:12 AM
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Thomas Tryon, who was the lead in the film "The Cardinal" and had a decent film career in the late 50s and early 60s, wrote "the Other" and a couple of other novels that were made into films. He was partnered with Casey Donovan for a few years in the mid- 1970s and also with a male dancer in A Chorus Line, Clive Clerk. . Died in 1991.
| by Anonymous | reply 13 | July 31, 2025 6:31 AM
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James Kirkwood was really known more for his writing (There must be a pony, and PS Your cat is dead), but he was an actor in a soap opera in the 1950s before he started to write. He also died in 1989.
| by Anonymous | reply 14 | July 31, 2025 6:34 AM
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Gillian Flynn (not Gaar) for [italic]Gone Girl[/italic] writer, OP.
| by Anonymous | reply 15 | July 31, 2025 6:57 AM
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Back in the 1980s I read a novel by Ruth Gordon. The Shady Lady. Remember nothing of it except that it wasn't bad.
| by Anonymous | reply 16 | July 31, 2025 7:27 AM
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I liked Tom Tryon's The Other
| by Anonymous | reply 17 | July 31, 2025 2:18 PM
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I wrote “Everybody Poops.”
| by Anonymous | reply 18 | July 31, 2025 2:20 PM
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