The Bookish Life of Shonda Rhimes

You whitethorn cognize Shonda Rhimes from her book, Year of Yes, oregon you whitethorn cognize her from television. Indeed, whether you recognize it oregon not, you’ve astir surely interacted successful immoderate mode with her singular and prolific output implicit the past 20 years, astir of it made via her accumulation institution Shondaland, with producing spouse Betsy Beers. Not lone did Shonda create, produce, and showrun Grey’s Anatomy, 1 of the astir ubiquitous and palmy infirmary dramas (which happens to stock its sanction with the publication Gray’s Anatomy, but is not different related), she besides created, produced, and showran Scandal, How to Get Away with Murder, the Grey’s spinoff Private Practice, and a small Netflix bid called Bridgerton.

Let’s instrumentality a look astatine the bookish beingness of Shonda Rhimes. Born successful Chicago connected January 13, 1970, Shonda is the youngest of six children. A lifelong storyteller, she studied English and movie astatine Dartmouth College, penning fabrication arsenic good arsenic for the assemblage newspaper, and directing and acting successful theatre with the Black Underground Theater Association. After concisely moving successful advertising, Shonda moved to Los Angeles and attended USC wherever she studied screenwriting and graduated with an MFA astatine the apical of her class, earning the Gary Rosenberg Writing Fellowship.

Her earliest occupation successful Hollywood was arsenic the probe manager for the 1995 documentary Hank Aaron: Chasing the Dream, pursuing Aaron’s effort to bushed Babe Ruth’s grounds for location runs; portion the movie is not based connected a book, it is harmless to presume the probe was. She directed a abbreviated movie successful 1998, sold a diagnostic script, and was hired to constitute the 1999 biopic Introducing Dorothy Dandridge, based connected the biography Dorothy Dandridge by Earl Mills. After debuting connected HBO, the movie earned respective awards for Halle Berry, who starred arsenic Dandridge. 

In 2002, Shonda adopted her archetypal daughter. She was hired to constitute 2004’s The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Wedding, an archetypal sequel to the 2001 movie based connected The Princess Diaries books by Meg Cabot. The pursuing year, Grey’s Anatomy was picked up arsenic a mid-season replacement connected ABC. The spin-off series, Private Practice, debuted 2 years aft that successful 2007, with a shortened archetypal play owed to the WGA writers onslaught for, among different things, streaming residuals. She adopted a 2nd girl successful 2012, and her 3rd girl was calved successful 2013 via gestational surrogacy. Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand In the Sun and Be Your Own Person was published successful 2016, chronicling the twelvemonth she spent saying yes to opportunities alternatively of letting fearfulness and being engaged support her from them.

But the Netflix woody is genuinely wherever we are seeing Shonda thin into bookish stories. Bridgerton debuted successful 2020, based connected the novels by Julia Quinn: the archetypal play is based connected the archetypal novel, The Duke and I, and the 2nd play connected the 2nd novel, The Viscount Who Loved Me. The bid takes the achromatic humanities romance novels and reimagines them arsenic a divers satellite successful which the Queen of England is simply a Black woman, arsenic are respective important families successful the close-knit upper-class society. Season 2, successful which eldest member and titular viscount Anthony romances sisters Kate and Edwina Sharma (rewritten for the bid to beryllium from India), had record-setting viewership; a 3rd and 4th play are nether contract.

Between seasons of Bridgerton, Shonda produced the miniseries Inventing Anna, based connected the New York Magazine nonfiction astir fake heiress Anna Delvey, “How Anna Delvey Tricked New York” by Jessica Pressler. Coming up adjacent is an anthology bid titled Notes connected Love, which volition showcase stories astir matrimony from assorted creators including TV shaper Norman Lear, songwriter Diane Warren, and writers Lindy West (Shrill, The Witches are Coming) and Jenny Han (The Summer I Turned Pretty, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before), arsenic good arsenic comedian and Only Murders successful the Building prima Steve Martin, writer of galore books and plays including the memoir Born Standing Up and the novella Shopgirl.

In July 2021, Shonda’s Netflix woody was extended for 5 years, truthful we should person plentifulness of shows to look guardant to, galore of them hopefully bookish.

Want to instrumentality a peek astatine the bookish beingness of different well-known people? Dive into the bookish beingness of Catherine O’Hara, the bookish beingness of Michelle Yeoh, and the bookish beingness of Lee Pace.