Former Sarasotan Chandler Baker's name became part of a national conversation in 2019, when she published her murder mystery novel Whisper Network and actress Reese Witherspoon picked it for her popular book club.  

That was just the beginning. Amazon MGM optioned Baker's next novel, The Husbands, and her Christmas-themed short story, Oh. What. Fun, has been adapted for Prime Video and will be released this September, starring none other than Michelle Pfeiffer. Most recently, Baker teamed up with Paramount+ to adapt her story Discretion for a new series starring Nicole Kidman and Elle Fanning.

Baker, 39, moved to Sarasota from Texas when she was 10 years old and attended Pine View School through high school graduation. Today, she's based in Austin, Texas, but her parents, whom she visits frequently with her husband and two children, still live in south Sarasota County. We spoke with her about her inspiration, upcoming projects and more. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Did you always want to be a writer?

“I wanted to be a writer my whole life. I’ve always been a big reader, but I didn't know that being a writer was something that one could choose as a profession. I have always been very Type A and responsible and I thought, ‘OK, I will go to law school, because that is what one does.’ But my junior year of college at [the University of Pennsylvania], I was talking to one of my friends from high school and I said we had to both set a goal: she wanted to run a marathon before she graduated from college, and that I wanted to write a novel before I graduated. We both did those things."

What was the path to getting published like?

“By the time I started law school, I had a literary agent and wrote throughout school with just enough success to justify continuing doing it while working as a corporate securities lawyer. I sold my first book under my own name to Disney. I published six books before I was able to leave being a practicing lawyer and write full-time. That happened after Whisper Network. My book was picked up for Reese's Book Club, and that allowed me to leave my job. Then I published The Husbands and Cutting Teeth.”

How did you transition from writing novels to screenwriting?

“I started after the adaptation of Whisper Network languished. It was never produced, and I thought, ‘I would rather my projects die by my own hand than somebody else's.’ So I decided I wanted to figure out the craft of screenwriting, and successfully attached myself to being able to write the script for the adaptation of The Husbands, which is at Amazon MGM and is still in development. 

"I wrote a spec script because I wanted to show that I could write something that was not an adaptation of my own work. That sold to Sony and Apple pretty quickly. And then I wrote the script for Oh. What. Fun., which is based on one of my short stories. It's my first producer credit. It shot last summer in Atlanta, starring Michelle Pfeiffer, Eva Longoria and Chloe Grace Moretz. It's been a whirlwind. And now, the short story that I wrote, 'Discretion,' which was based on my time as a corporate lawyer processing a million [non-disclosure agreements], has been greenlit and will be shot next fall.”

How does screenwriting differ from writing novels?

“It’s so different. For Oh. What. Fun., I was there for all of preproduction. It was a very fast process from greenlight to production, so I was doing a lot of story revising up through when we started. Then I was in Atlanta on-site for the entire shoot and wrote on set every day. I’ll do the same for Discretion.

"Oh. What. Fun is a feature, and it's very different because the director is the captain of the ship, and everything serves his or her vision. Michael Showalter directed while I helped to manage the story. Sometimes, when you're going through a scene with an actor, you can tell if it isn't landing well, so I’ll hone the scene to get it to where we want.”

What is working on Discretion like?

“I'd had an idea for this legal thriller that had to do with NDAs, and I've been talking about it for about a year. My manager stayed on me to write it, but I had a lot of other projects on my plate. I finally said, ‘Fine.’ My husband is always telling me to go take some time dedicated time at a hotel to write, so that’s what I did. I wrote Discretion over the course of two days, and it’s been a bullet train ever since. I think I took 41 meetings from interested producers and studios, with 14 offers at the time.

"I’ll have a writer's room, and I am in the process of hiring writers who will start in Los Angeles in December. We'll spend 12 to 14 weeks together. Different people write scripts, and I will write a few myself. And then we’ll be in prep and preproduction, and we'll go into shooting next fall.”

Any chance you'll have a cameo?

“I'm actually Holiday Mom No. 4 in Oh. What. Fun. I couldn't get Holiday Mom No. 1, and I couldn’t even get a name! I am not a natural performer, and it involves dancing, which adds insult to injury. But it has made the final cut, so people can watch it.”

If someone were to dive into your body of work, which book should they begin with?

"Whisper Network is my most popular book. That's always a good, fun place to start. I have a special place in my heart for Cutting Teeth, which I'm currently adapting for a [TV] pilot. It’s an odd story, but it’s my secret favorite."

Have you thought about setting anything in Sarasota?

“Oh, I don’t know, I hadn't thought about it. I will say, I do feel like Sarasota pops up in all these strange ways, either on the news or in crazy documentaries. Maybe I have familiarity bias, but I feel like I see Sarasota everywhere these days.”