{"id":139260,"date":"2024-05-13T11:42:04","date_gmt":"2024-05-13T16:42:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=139260"},"modified":"2024-05-13T11:42:07","modified_gmt":"2024-05-13T16:42:07","slug":"university-of-mississippi-graduate-students-book-lands-netflix-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/university-of-mississippi-graduate-students-book-lands-netflix-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"University of Mississippi Graduate Student&#8217;s Book Lands Netflix Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><em>Via Bleidner&#8217;s collection of humorous essays in development for TV series<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Via Bleidner<\/strong> kept detailed journals after transferring from a Catholic school to a <strong>Los Angeles County<\/strong> high school full of wealthy, fame-seeking teenagers. Her coming-of-age accounts shared in\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/us.macmillan.com\/books\/9781250753939\/ifyoulivedhereyoudbefamousbynow\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&#8220;If You Lived Here You&#8217;d Be Famous By Now&#8221;<\/a>\u00a0(<strong>Macmillan<\/strong>, 2021) have scored a <strong>Netflix <\/strong>series deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bleidner, a student in the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/catalog.olemiss.edu\/liberal-arts\/english\/mfa-cr-wr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">master&#8217;s program in creative writing<\/a>\u00a0at the <strong>University of Mississippi<\/strong>, shares her journey navigating the drama and culture shock of <strong>Calabasas<\/strong>, a <strong>California <\/strong>city known for its rich families, including the <strong>Kardashians<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;I knew lots of people whose goal when they grew up was to be famous,&#8221; Bleidner said. &#8220;It wasn&#8217;t like, &#8216;Oh, I want to be a famous painter or a famous chemist&#8217;; it was, &#8216;Oh, I just want to be famous.&#8217;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s the end goal, which I think is really different and unique to that area.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Kim Kardashian<\/strong> and <strong>Emma Roberts<\/strong> are part of the team producing &#8220;Calabasas,&#8221; a scripted Netflix series based on her book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;I still can&#8217;t believe it,&#8221; Bleidner said regarding the deal. &#8220;I&#8217;m excited \u2013 and a little nervous, but I have confidence in the team working on the streaming series.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bleidner&#8217;s book was published in 2021, when she was 19 and studying at the <strong>University of California<\/strong> at <strong>Santa Barbara<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Discussing everything from social media to high school politics, she aimed to write something humorous that resonated with her fellow <strong>Gen-Z<\/strong> community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;I especially wanted to reach young women,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I&#8217;ll get messages on Instagram from girls who read my book, and that is the coolest part of it for me.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nearly 2,000 miles from Calabasas, Bleidner is working on a collection of short fiction stories for her thesis at <strong>Ole Miss<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;I still have a lot more to learn,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I want to be a better writer. The professors in the MFA are amazing. I can&#8217;t even name just one or two. They&#8217;re all wonderful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;The workshops that I&#8217;ve been in with other MFA writers have been so challenging because everyone is so talented. Just being around all of these other talented writers has already helped me become a better writer.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The California native said she would like to see more undergraduates pursue publishing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;I encourage writers to just try&#8221; Bleidner said. &#8220;When I was a freshman in college just sending my writing out blindly, it happened for me.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>By Marvis Herring<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Via-Bleidner.jpg?ssl=1\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"656\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Via-Bleidner.jpg?resize=640%2C656&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-139261\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Via-Bleidner.jpg?w=720&amp;ssl=1 720w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Via-Bleidner.jpg?resize=293%2C300&amp;ssl=1 293w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Via Bleidner, a master&#8217;s student at the University of Mississippi, has a development deal from Netflix for her first book, &#8216;If You Lived Here You&#8217;d Be Famous By Now.&#8217; Submitted photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Bleidner-book.jpg?ssl=1\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"967\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Bleidner-book.jpg?resize=640%2C967&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-139262\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Bleidner-book.jpg?w=662&amp;ssl=1 662w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Bleidner-book.jpg?resize=199%2C300&amp;ssl=1 199w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/TheLocalVoiceLigature-25web.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"25\" height=\"16\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/TheLocalVoiceLigature-25web.jpg?resize=25%2C16\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-14544\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Via Bleidner&#8217;s collection of humorous essays in development for TV series Via Bleidner kept detailed journals after transferring<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":123462,"featured_media":139261,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17687],"tags":[28690,4765,28693,28695,28688,28691,28692,28687,28689,5,11519,7067,4,28694,17061,655,28686],"class_list":["post-139260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-university-of-mississippi","tag-calabasas","tag-california","tag-emma-roberts","tag-gen-z","tag-if-you-lived-here-youd-be-famous-by-now","tag-kardashians","tag-kim-kardashian","tag-los-angeles-county","tag-macmillan","tag-mississippi","tag-netflix","tag-ole-miss","tag-oxford","tag-santa-barbara","tag-university-of-california","tag-university-of-mississippi","tag-via-bleidner"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Via-Bleidner.jpg?fit=720%2C738&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/123462"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139260"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139260\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":139263,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139260\/revisions\/139263"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}