Saul Martinez for The New York Times
The lunches Judy Blume used to have in Hollywood would all go the same way, she said. “Judy, sweetheart, what would you like to do?” the men would ask — and they were always men. “We want to work with you. How do you want to adapt your books?” This began in the 1970s and continued for decades. She had already sold millions of copies, on her way to her current tally of more than 90 million worldwide.
But she didn’t know what a Judy Blume movie should be. She was young when she first took the meetings. As the years went on, she kept writing while navigating two tumultuous divorces, newfound fame, and the relentless attacks by the religious right and its crusade to ban her books — books that in Ms. Blume’s quest to honestly depict the teenage experience dared to frankly discuss masturbation, menstruation and sexual desire, topics, among others, that made teens feel seen.
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