When people think of Italy, they not only think of the outstanding architecture and awe-inspiring art, but they also think of food. Various savory ingredients go into dishes “da zero,” made from scratch. This ancient region can promote a discovery of the senses – olfactory, gustatory, or romantic. 

When actress Tembi Locke traveled to Florence, Italy as an exchange student, she couldn’t have imagined that she’d meet her soul mate, Saro, there. Her life’s journey is a merry-go-sorry, a carousel of joy and sorrow. In 2019, her moving memoir From Scratch: A Memoir of Love, Sicily, and Finding Home was released to rave reviews and was recently adapted into a limited series on Netflix. Tembi and her sister, award-winning novelist and screenwriter Attica Locke, have created a heartwarming series that’s a concerto of the human experience, touching on the different notes of life and stars Zoe Saldana, Danielle Deadwyler, Eugenio Mastrandrea, Kellita Smith, and Keith David.

Tembi and Attica recently spoke with Creative Screenwriting Magazine about emotional expedition of writing the book and developing the adaptation.

Tembi, when you were in Italy, what similarities did you notice between their culture and yours?

Tembi: A couple of things. I’ve been moving in and out of Italy for more than twenty years, so I’ve watched that nation change. I’ve been moving out of two central places in Italy. One is Florence, which is decidedly an Old-World European city that’s a small-town that absorbs millions of tourists from around the world, but it’s also cosmopolitan. It’s two things and sometimes they’re at odds with each other. That means not understanding itself. 

The other end of the spectrum, further south, on the island of Sicily. In the deep interior is this place of five hundred people. They’ve been there for generations. It’s not cosmopolitan.

What I’ve learned from both of these places is that people are fundamentally the same wherever you go. If you’re inside someone’s home in Florence, Sicily or Texas, people are talking about the same things – who they love or who they don’t love, their woes, their aspirations. 

But culturally, I have found that on the surface Sicilian people, particularly when I was there going twenty years ago, they were initially closed off and that’s not personal to me. That is the history of an island that has been conquered for centuries by so many different cultures that the net result of that is a populace of people who are literally like, ‘Well, first of all, if I don’t know you, I’m going to take a beat before I actually engage. But then once I decide you’re fine, then it’s all love.’ That’s the hurdle you have to get over in Sicily, at least that’s been my experience.

Florence is like, ‘Thank you for loving that we have this beautiful city. Please keep moving. We actually want Florence to ourselves.’ As a Black woman moving in those spaces, being a Black American has primed me for being Black anywhere.

What sparked your creativity there?

Tembi: The aesthetic, the physical beauty of the place. That translates from the big architectural piece to the plate of pasta.

How did you decide to finally sit down and write the book?

Tembi: It was because of Attica. Attica told me, ‘If you’re not going to write this book, I’m not going to talk to you anymore.’ I knew she was serious and that she was believing in me in a way that I wasn’t yet ready to believe in myself.

Attica: I just wanted to read that book…! I knew the story and journey you’d tell would be rich.

Attica, with your novel writing, what’s your process? For instance, how do you come up with your titles?

Attica: The first title I didn’t come up with. I wanted to call my first novel Bayou City because that’s the nickname for Houston. But everyone in New York was like, ‘Well, that’s Louisiana if it’s a bayou.’ My agent at the time came up with the title. Every other one it just comes to me. The Cutting Season was obvious because that’s what they call the cutting of the sugar cane. Pleasantville was obvious. With the Darren Matthews books, and I’m writing one now, those are more like I’m panning for what sounds right. What ultimately gave me permission is that I had a list of titles for that book. I was going to call it Highway 59. They wanted me to come up with something else. Bluebird, Bluebird was on my list, but I thought it was so esoteric that  nobody would go for it. When I sent them a list it was on there and they said, ‘That’s it.’ That gave me permission to throw out the rules about how to name a book. That’s where Heaven, My Home came from. I was pulling from blues songs lyrics.

You’ve written one book Tembi and you’ve written several Attica. How would you compare your book writing processes?

Attica: Each book, I have a very strong sense of where to start. Sometimes that’s backed up by research, sometimes it’s not. Then I just  go. I can go about eighty pages before I realize, ‘Oh, I don’t really know where this is going. Perhaps I ought to stop and actually plan some stuff out.’ Then, in doing that I realize, ‘Oh, I have to go to the beginning now to weave in new things I’ve figured out.’ I just keep circling back until I can go all the way to the end.

Tembi: First of all, I’ve written one book. Let’s start there…! Anything about approaching the page is heavily influenced by riding side saddle with my sister, who I’ve watched for decades write books. I observationally noted things along the way. She writes fiction, I write memoir. By that very nature, there has to be two different crafts. 

We have different craft processes. I’ve copied her about the emotional process. I would check in with her around the emotions and feelings of trying to birth the book and she was excellent at  giving me permission to go gently and to take the days as they came. She told me that if I was thinking about my book, that that was work too. So, in terms of process, I definitely modeled myself after Attica. In terms of craft, I had to know where the end was. You can’t start a memoir and not know where the end is because you’re writing about something you’ve already lived. I had to excavate memories and figure out how to craft that on the page.

Attica: What she does, in my opinion, is actually harder. I just make stuff up so I’m not beholden to anything that ever happened. That is more freeing to me.

Tembi, how do you feel being a caregiver enriched your artistry?

Tembi: Caregiving taught me a couple of things. One was that I can’t control the circumstance. I’ve got to be open and vigilant to whatever may come and show up with my full self and hope that it’s going to come together. As a new writer, as a producer, and even in my career as an actor, I have psychologically approached those endeavors in the same way. I’m going to be my best self, but something is going to show up that I have no control over. I have to practice a kind of non-attachment. I had to have the same attitude with my book. I couldn’t be attached to it being a great book. I just had to know it was going to be the book I’m capable of writing today. Being a caregiver has made me have a more philosophical approach to my artistry. 

How did the adaptation come about?

Tembi: Attica!

She puts things in motion! 

Tembi: She does! 

Attica: I was about to start the job Little Fires Everywhere with Hello Sunshine. I went to their offices to read the pilot script, which they had that under lock and key. I sat there and read the script. Afterwards, Lauren Neustadter came in. She runs Hello Sunshine. She wanted to talk about other projects. Books that they were thinking about optioning and love stories. What got my attention was she was looking at a book about a complicated relationship between a mother-in-law and a daughter-in-law. And I was like, ‘Well, I know a book about that.’ Then I just pitched the entire book. Lauren was like, ‘Your sister. That’s interesting. But let me read this.’ She got excited, another executive there got excited, Reese Witherspoon read it. And they were in. They said it was fantastic. They wanted to sit down and talk with us about what it would be like to adapt this for TV.

You’ve written screenplays before, Attica. Tembi, how was it for you to write the screenplay as opposed to the book. 

Tembi: A whole new endeavor! I was very nervous about it. As someone who’d been on the receiving end of scripts for years as an actor, I sort of knew I had a deep respect for the craft. I thought, ‘Am I crazy to think I can crack open this craft?’ But I knew I’d do the best I could. The one thing about being in a writers room and in a partnership is that I’m going to bring the best I can but you’re not doing it alone. I knew I could lean into those experienced screenwriters. I knew I had a lot to learn structurally. 

What was an average writing day like?

Attica: It was gentle. Tembi and I had already written a draft of the pilot by the time the writers’ room started. We started every day around 10:30 a.m. We were done around 4:00 or 5:00 p.m. The show I was on before, Little Fires Everywhere, had showrunner Liz Tigelaar, who was my mentor, and she believed in a gentle approach. I have this theory that there are some people who try to put a structure on the writers’ room that makes it feel like a “real” job.

As showrunner, I was there late because I was working on scripts and stuff, but overall, the process was gentle on purpose and one of the best experiences of my life. 

Tembi, how did you decide what to leave and take out from the book?

Tembi: That was a joint decision that Attica and I made early on. We decided what the pillars of the onscreen story would be. What drove those choices were sometimes purely cinematic reasons but those were secondary to what are the emotional turning points of the story. We determined early on that the series would cover all aspects and paradigms of love, from eros to agape. As you’re going between these two points, what are the mile markers that get you there? Those became the non-negotiables. For me personally, there are also storylines that are dear to me. In my other life, I’m an advocate for caregiving, grief awareness, and childhood grief. 

Did you both have a say in the casting?

Attica: Zoe Saldana was brought to us a s a gift. Hello Sunshine reached out to us because Reese Witherspoon had dinner with Zoe and her husband, who is Italian. She was watching the two of them interact, speak Italian, feed each other, and look lovingly at each other. She was like, ‘Wait a minute. I’m getting a feeling about this.’ Then they called us to see how we felt about it. We thought about it and felt like it was a fateful gift that fell in our lap. Zoe has sisters with whom produces. Her husband is a visual artist. She and her sisters experienced childhood grief. We were a core part of the casting at every single level all the way through. 

Do you feel storytelling is similar to cooking?

Tembi: I would say so, unequivocally so. I don’t talk about this often, but cooking is actually an integral part of my writing process, especially in writing this book. I would often cook first. For me it’s a way for me to open up my senses and my muse. Then I could go and write about food or love. It’s very peaceful. The idea of taking all these different flavor profiles and putting them together to create something that is cohesive, satisfying, and delicious. With writing, you’re taking all of these disparate voices and you’re trying to put them together into something that feels like a satisfying meal.