Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: After directing Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop, the indie documentary about the talk-show host’s musical road trip while under late-night TV ban after exiting NBC’s Tonight Show, Rodman Flender has found another project. He’s teaming with Amy Lippman to adapt How I Became A Famous Novelist, Steve Hely’s comic novel about a down-on-his-luck guy who resolves to write a bestselling novel solely to upstage his ex-girlfriend at her wedding. Even though he has loaded in every cliche and a well-worn plot line, the novelist watches his book become a raging bestseller. It’s such a phenomenon that it inflames the literary community, alienates his ex and causes him to rethink what makes good writing worthwhile. Flender is married to Lippman, whose long list of TV credits includes Party of Five, the HBO series In Treatment and most recently Lone Star. Hely’s novel won the 2010 Thurber Award, and he has also worked as a TV writer on 30 Rock, American Dad and The Late Show With David Letterman. He’s currently a producer on The Office. Flender, Lippman and Hely are all repped by WME.