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The WME literary media department, responsible for working with authors and shepherding screen adaptations of their literary works, is marking its tenth anniversary in the wake of a big showing at this year’s Emmys.
“DTF St. Louis,” which featured WME client and series star/executive producer David Harbour, cleaned up in the limited series category at awards last month. The HBO show picked up seven wins, including outstanding limited series, outstanding supporting actor (Harbour) and actress (Linda Cardellini), and outstanding writing and directing (both for Steven Conrad).
“DTF St. Louis” was one of 18 film or TV (both scripted and unscripted) projects coming out of the WME literary media department in 2026. Others include “56 Days” and “Every Year After” at Amazon, “People We Meet on Vacation” at Netflix and “Imperfect Women” at Apple TV. Upcoming releases include “Unaccustomed Earth” at Netflix and “The Good Daughter” at Peacock.
That is on top of 24 additional series and film greenlights and other projects in production. And the division’s recent key signings include prolific author Danielle Steel, “Slow Horses” author Mick Herron and “The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas” author John Boyne.
The success of the department comes at a time when Hollywood is increasingly looking to literary adaptations as IP for the next successful show, movie or franchise. Shows like “Slow Horses,” “Reacher” and “Will Trent” are all based on long-running book series and continue to drive large viewership even later in their runs. Meanwhile, YA novel series with strong online fandoms have turned into successful shows, like “Off Campus” and “The Summer I Turned Pretty.”
Variety spoke with department co-heads Sylvie Rabineau and Hilary Zaitz Michael about their achievements over the past decade, what the market looks like today and what they see as the future of their business.
“I feel like my whole mission is to make sure that the author has a very important seat at the table, obviously depending on what that author wants from the experience,” Rabineau says. “Now, with authors so engaged with their audiences and their readership, books have never been more important and authors have never been more important. With BookTok and more independent bookstores again, it feels like there’s this great momentum that is happening for books across film and television.”
Zaitz Michael adds: “I don’t, by any means, think that this is a supereasy market or a very difficult market. I just think that buyers are being so disciplined. It’s all about finding material that feels undeniable, and it can be a number of different things.
“Our core business is always going to be publishing agents, authors and journalists,” she continues. “However, our business has really exploded in terms of alternative IP, whether it is video games, podcasts or Substacks. It could also be a creator, either through Instagram or through YouTube, that is just putting out their own original ideas.”
But in a crowded marketplace, cutting through all that noise is easiest “when we can partner with the right piece of talent or a showrunner or brilliant director, and we can actually show the buyers and the marketplace what it is we’re actually selling,” Zaitz Michael says.
While some authors want to be very actively involved in developing their projects for TV and film, Rabineau and Zaitz Michael say that the level of involvement has to be tailored to each client.
“There are plenty of incredibly well-established, household-name authors that we work with that truly love writing their novels, and film and TV is not something of interest to them,” Zaitz Michael says. “Then so many of our authors have become incredible television showrunners and screenwriters, and some of them even go into directing.”
Adds Rabineau: “What I’ve learned from my clients who do both is that the skills required for writing television and the skills required for writing their books very much complement each other. Both experiences make them stronger writers across the board.”
The pair point to Karin Slaughter, whose books have been adapted into the hit ABC series “Will Trent,” as an example of how one of their clients has taken to writing for television with great enthusiasm.
“Because Karin had such a positive experience working on [‘Will Trent’], she adapted ‘The Good Daughter,’ which is going to premiere in November,” Zaitz Michael says. “She wrote all the episodes, and she did that all on spec, which is just unbelievably amazing.”
Both Rabineau and Zaitz Michael say they’re bullish on the business as a whole and their department specifically. They see enormous opportunities for growth, as long as they can adapt to the changing times.
“I think that our core business will continue to expand,” Rabineau says. “We are all book lovers and love working with books — fiction, nonfiction, short stories, journalism, all of that. So that will always be the case, and we will always be expanding that client list. But we are very aware of all the ways in which our culture is shifting. We want to embrace all of it and find the best storytellers in every aspect of it.”
