How Local Author Pierre-Luc Cool Is Turning His First Novel Into A Movie

Pierre-Luc Cool is the author of three novels, and also a screenwriter who is currently working on an adaptation of his first novel, L’été des mouches. 

From Petit Rocher, Pierre-Luc Cool always knew he wanted to write stories.

“I remember saying as a kid that I’m going to write comic books,” says Pierre-Luc. 

Then, in high school, he started writing poetry to express himself, especially in the evenings when he couldn’t sleep. 

In University he continued, and when a professor told him he could skip a creative writing class on his way to becoming a teacher, Pierre-Luc felt validated in his writing for the first time. 

However, when he graduated in 2006, it was a couple of years before he could take pleasure in writing again. 

Once his love of writing returned, he thought he’d take a stab at writing a novel. Being a huge fan of Stephen King’s The Body, Pierre-Luc wrote a coming of age horror novel titled, L’été des mouches. 

The process from conception to publication took eight years. The novel was written in 2011 and published in 2019. His next two novels, L’Ultime and Cocagne, were much faster to write and publish. He published his second novel in 2021, and his third in 2022.

“It’s about knowing how to write and where to go with your writing,” says Pierre-Luc. “For the first one, I was all over the place. Now I know how I want to write it. You also need to surround yourself with the people you want to work with.”

If it isn’t impressive enough that we have a local author who has published three novels, he was even approached by Montreal director François Bégin to adapt his first novel, L’été des mouches, into a movie.

Pierre-Luc says that in the beginning, the sales for the first book were mostly family and friends. However, there were a handful of sales from people he didn’t know. And one of those sales was the Montreal director.

Bégin looked in smaller local libraries for a coming of age horror story. They handed him Pierre-Luc’s debut novel, and after reading it, he reached out to the local author.

“It was crazy,” says Pierre-Luc, “He’d done TV series before. He’s a well established director.” 

The next step was finding a producer, and from there a screenwriter. They found Moncton based producer, René Savoie from Productions du milieu, and after searching for a screenwriter, the idea of Pierre-Luc helming the script came up, and the team decided it was a good idea. 

Pierre-Luc says writing a script was a big learning curve.

“It’s so different from a novel. You’re only writing for visual and audio.”

He’s gone through multiple drafts, and he’s hoping that his revised version will take production to the next step. 

We want to thank Pierre-Luc Cool for speaking with us about his many exciting projects. We hope you enjoyed this edition of the Northern Heat Report. The place you come to listen to the stories that have not yet been discovered.