Room, both the book and the film, unfolds through the eyes and distinctive voice of a 5-year-old named Jack. So I wanted to guard this one,” she says. I didn’t want creepy and I didn’t want sentimental. Voyeurism is more risky in film than in a novel. “I don’t think women who write best-selling novels should always hand them over to the industry, especially since this story was so important for me to write and not have it become some creepy rape movie. Women are powerful in fiction but in film the numbers on women are still appalling so it was quite important to me to see if I can manage this myself,” she says. TORONTO, ON – SEPTEMBER 14: Writer Emma Donoghue speaks onstage during the “Room” press conference at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival at TIFF Bell Lightbox on Septemin Toronto, Canada. But there’s another reason she wanted to “have a go” at the script. Room is getting such solid early notices (it opens wide at the end of October) that it puts Donoghue’s adaptation into Oscar contention. Why not?” said Donoghue in an interview at the recent Toronto International Film Festival where Room premiered and went on to win the Grolsch People’s Choice Award. So, I thought, before anyone starts telling me what to do, I’m just going to have a go. “I knew there was going to be a lot of fuss once it was published because the publishers already paid a lot and were putting a huge amount into publicity. Donoghue wrote the screenplay for her 2010 novel - but she did it before it was even published, let alone before it became an international best-seller.

Now add Emma Donoghue to that short list. In the past few years, Gillian Flynn ( Gone Girl) Jesse Andrews ( Me and Earl and the Dying Girl) Stephen Chbosky ( The Perks of Being a Wallflower, which he also directed) and Jonathan Tropper ( This is Where I Leave You) all adapted their own novels for the screen. But lately more novelists are defying convention and tackling the screen versions of their hit books. Sure, there have been notable exceptions over the years: Carrie Fisher did it for Postcards from the Edge and John Irving won an Oscar for The Cider House Rules, his first and only screenplay. It’s still pretty rare - and usually unadvisable - for a novelist to adapt his/her book for the movie version.

Room author emma donoghue