Mary Anne and Wanda Were the Best of Friends - Table Reading at Atlanta Women's Film Festival

this weekend i was lucky enough to read a 10-page-excerpt from my short script MARY ANNE AND WANDA WERE THE BEST OF FRIENDS at the atlanta women's film festival!

this script is an adaptation of a short story i wrote in high school over a decade ago. that short story was in turn a loose adaptation of "Goodbye Earl" by The Chicks. the story is also about my best friend from high school and the dogged dedication i had to her even when she gave me nothing in return. it's about my own experiences with domestic violence and how sick i made myself fantasizing about someone who loved me better swooping in to rescue me. it's about how the people i imagined as my heroes never did come to save me, leaving me to pull myself out of hell by any means necessary. in short, it's about the consequences of putting the people you love on a pedestal.

exactly one year and 364 days before this table reading, i packed a backpack with my valuables and a change of clothes, i told my partner i was going to a friend's house, and i left him for the last time. i turned my phone off, went to a safe house, and waited for him to find the breakup letter i had left for him. it was the hardest thing i've ever had to do. i'm still in awe of how much bigger, brighter, and more beautiful my world has grown since that day.

i'm so grateful to have shared this story with a room full of people as i celebrated the anniversary of my great escape. i'm grateful to get to tell this story at all. mary anne and wanda really were the best of friends, and legend has it that they're still out on highway 109 not losing any sleep at night.

MARY ANNE and WANDA WERE the BEST of FRIENDS by Annabeth Olivia Mellon

LOGLINE: Fearing for her life, an abused housewife asks her incarcerated best friend for help. Loosely based on "Goodbye Earl" by The Chicks.