Interview (Part 2): Sarah Jane Inwards (2017 Black List, Nicholl Winner)

My 6-part talk with the writer of the script “Jellyfish Summer”.

Sarah Jane Inwards wrote the original screenplay “Jellyfish Summer” which not only won a 2017 Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting, it made the 2017 Black List. Recently, I had the opportunity to chat with Sarah Jane about her background, her award-winning script, the craft of screenwriting, and what winning the Nicholl and being on the Black List has meant to her.

Today in Part 2 of our 6 part interview series, Sarah Jane and I dig into her award winning script “Jellyfish Summer”:

Scott: I’d like to move into talking about your script, “Jellyfish Summer,” which, as noted, won both the Nicholl, 2017 Nicholl Fellowship, and also was recently named to the 2017 Black List. Here’s a plot summary:

“A young black girl’s family in 1960s Mississippi decides to harbor two human-looking refugees who have mysteriously fallen from the sky.” It’s an imaginative, compelling script, combining drama and science fiction. In reading it, I was struck by just how inventive it was. What was the inspiration for the story?

Sarah Jane: First of all, thanks so much for reading and thanks for the kind comments about it. I think every writer’s excited when people read their work, so thank you. Actually, the origins of this story were rooted in my desire to tell the story of Bosnian refugees and immigrants, and the Bosnian genocide that occurred in the ‘90s.

In Minnesota, immigrants and refugees usually land in the Minneapolis area, but some end up where I grew up, in Rochester. I grew up with some Bosnian refugees and immigrants. As I went on to college, I ended up studying Bosnian language and reaching out to the Bosnian community in Chicago to learn more.

I wanted to tell a story about that experience. As I worked on that story, the Syrian refugee crisis started to really pick up. That is the backstory, the seed of inspiration, but the real spark for Maisie’s story was actually when I saw a photo of Alan Kurdi. He was the three-year-old Syrian boy whose body washed up on the beach in Turkey, and there was a viral photograph of that.

For some reason, that image sparked the idea for this story. I know that it seems like quite a far-reach from those origins to the story that Jellyfish Summer is, but I decided to talk about these big themes in an allegory.

I also found that, in talking about xenophobia in America, it’s hard to not talk about racism in America as well. I wanted to shine the spotlight on those two things and how their roots are inextricable in my mind.

Scott: So you started off more from a central thematic premise rather than, say, a character or a story world.

Sarah Jane: Yeah, definitely. I guess the desire to write the story started out with the theme of why we should help refugees. It’s the central theme. In telling that story, I began to dive in and try to find a specific story to tell within that idea.

Scott: How did 1965 happen?

Sarah Jane: That’s a great question. I found allegory is an easy way to talk about today. I think a lot of sci-fi writers use sci-fi as a lens to talk about racism, xenophobia, etc. because it makes the “other” somebody about whom nobody has preconceived notions already. Instead of talking about Syrian or Bosnian refugees, for example, we’re talking about these Fallen people. In the same way that that kind of allegory helps to keep people viewing it without their preconceived notions, I wanted to talk about today’s political climate with a similar type lens. Through that, I decided to use the 1960s’ Civil Rights Movement.

For example, if you look at something like athletes kneeling at NFL games today, that is still very divisive for a lot of people. People have a lot of preconceived notions, right, that image? For the most part, when you look at civil rights activists in the ’60s at sit-ins at diners, most people have decided what those images mean to them and what the “right and wrong sides” were.

In the same way that I wanted to use sci-fi as a lens to talk about the other, I wanted to use the time period as a lens to talk about today.

Scott: Civil Rights Movement brings you to the ’60s and the setting for the story, which is Mississippi, the Deep South. Of course, Mississippi has a very storied history, a tragic history in many ways involving the civil rights movement. Here you are from Minnesota, you go to college in Illinois. That’s quite a segue in terms of culture.

How did you go about, A, gaining the confidence you could write that subculture, and, B, doing whatever research you did in order to create the story world you did? Having grown up in the South, I found it quite authentic.

Sarah Jane: Thank you. That’s a relief to hear because I think every writer, when they transplant themselves to somewhere that they’re not necessarily familiar, is a little bit worried about making sure that they keep it authentic.

In terms of Mississippi, I’ve only visited twice. The first time was in high school. I went to go help to clean up after Hurricane Katrina. The other time was through a documentary job I had. I went to a Chiefs of Police Conference in Mississippi.

I did draw upon those experiences a bit in terms of thinking about the accent, the scenery, and some of the general culture points. Then, aside from that, I just did a lot of research on the time and the place.

One thing I like to do as a writer in terms of dialogue — I think that’s the hardest thing — is I will just Google videos of people from the region talking. Sometimes, it’s something as simple as a make-up tutorial.

Sometimes, they’re not even related in any way to what I’m writing about, but I’m just listening to people from the area talking and trying to think about how I can start thinking of my characters.

Tomorrow in Part 3, we continue our in-depth conversation about Sarah Jane’s 2017 Black List script “Jellyfish Summer”.

For Part 1 of the interview, go here.

Sarah Jane is repped by Verve and Kaplan/Perrone.

For my interviews with 52 other Black List writers, go here.

For my interviews with 26 other Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting writers, go here.