How Acclaimed Author & Screenwriter Kevin Wade Writes

Novelist, veteran screenwriter, and longtime Blue Bloods showrunner Kevin Wade spoke with us about the challenges of transitioning across writing mediums, storytelling principles, and book two of his debut crime series, ONE GOOD EYE.

Kevin Wade is the Golden Globe and the Writers Guild of America nominated screenwriter of movies including the seven-time Oscar nominated comedy Working Girl (1988), True Colors (1991) starring John Cusack and James Spader, the Tom Selleck comedy Mr. Baseball (1992), Ivan Reitman's Junior (1994), the epic romance Meet Joe Black (1998),  and the rom-com Maid in Manhattan (2002).

In 2010, he joined the rookie CBS drama Blue Bloods as a writer, and in 2011 he became its showrunner and executive producer for the entire 14-year run.

His latest release is the follow-up to his debut crime novel Johnny Careless, a book author John Sanford called a “fast-moving classic crime novel,” and that was shortlisted for the Edgar Best First Novel Award.

One Good Eye is the second in the Police Chief Jeep Mullane series and Library Journal said of the author, “Wade delivers another compelling literary mystery. His characters feel intimately real...and Jeep remains a deeply engaging protagonist...With sharp prose and a vivid sense of place on Long Island’s Gold Coast, Wade’s second…book will have readers eager to read more stories about Jeep and his community."

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In this file Kevin Wade, Milena, and I discussed:

What his early aspirations as an actor in NYC taught him about playwriting

How he had his first screenplay turned into a hit movie by a legendary director

Why he wrote his debut novel during the Writers Guild strike

The biggest challenges of moving from TV writing to the novel