Miss Sweetie is bringing her voice to a new platform. According to Variety, Stacey Lee’s young adult novel “The Downstairs Girl” is being developed as a half-hour series at Bound Entertainment, a Korea-based studio centering stories and talent from and about the Asian diaspora. Published in 2019, the bestseller follows a young woman who works as a maid and moonlights as a pseudonymous newspaper columnist.
Set in 1890 Atlanta, “The Downstairs Girl” is the story of 17-year-old Jo Kuan, “who lives with her guardian, Old Gin, secretly inside a basement. She works for one of the wealthiest families as a maid during the day and writes anonymously under the name Miss Sweetie for a newspaper by night; helping to solve the community disagreements that span race, gender bias, the women’s movement, and old-fashioned civility,” per the source. “Finding her voice gives way to Jo having the courage to confront the questions and secrets of her family and identity.”
Lee and Bound founder Samuel Ha will executive produce the adaptation. Emmy and WGA Award-winning “Ghostwriter” scribe Aminta Goyel will pen the project.
“Growing up as a Korean American in the South, I have always wanted to tell stories that included people who look like me in our history, set in the area I grew up,” Ha said. “Asians are in every corner of the U.S. and in our history, and it has always been Bound’s priority to include them in the stories we tell. Stacey has been a leader in seeing the possibility of the characters in our history we may have overlooked, and we’re excited to have Aminta work with us in bringing this delightful and authentic YA story to screen.”
Lee remarked, “I’m excited for Miss Sweetie to step into the homes of modern viewers, who might not have imagined a heroine like this could exist in 1890 Atlanta. ‘The Downstairs Girl’ was a treat to write, and I’m honored to collaborate with Bound Entertainment to bring it off the page and onto the screen!”
Lee is also the author of “Outrun the Moon,” “Under a Painted Sky,” and “The Secret of a Heart Note.” The former won the 2017 Pen Center Award for Young Adult Fiction and the Asian Pacific American Librarians Association YA Book of the Year prize. A fourth-generation Chinese American, Lee helped found the We Need Diverse Books movement.
