Film Alumna Tara Roy ’17 To Publish Debut Novel

Creative Producing alumna Tara Roy ’17 is publishing The Magnificent Ruins, a debut novel, with Algonquin Books, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, in 2024.

Roy’s fiction debut is a sweeping, romantic inheritance plot set in Calcutta and Brooklyn. The novel brings together the threads of a strained homecoming, the cultural divide between America and India, and the explosive reveal of violent secrets that have been long hidden within the walls of this family home. The novel has been described as an Indian Rebecca for fans of Vikram Seth and Elena Ferrante.

The story that would eventually become The Magnificent Ruins was first developed during Roy’s time at Columbia—but not in the Film Program. A year into her time at the School of the Arts, Roy took a fiction writing class with Adjunct Associate Professor Benjamin Taylor.

“I could have so easily been on the fourth floor [where the Writing Program is based] during my years at Columbia,” Roy said. “I have no regrets—I love being an executive. But I always wanted to know what the Writing Program students’ lives were like. I’d always thought, ‘Someday, I’ll write a book’. It was never a question of if, but when.”

That fateful class, entitled “Other People’s Secrets,” examined “the endless varieties of inner experience, and how outer life disguises and intimates the fortress of secrets within.” When the final assignment came due—a 6,000-word short story—Roy didn’t know what to write.

“I asked Benjamin if I could use a story I’d written previously, and he said no, it absolutely had to be something new,” Roy said. “I sat down in Max Caffé, and what poured out of me was a story about a mother and daughter, and the secrets we harbor generation after generation. Those secrets turn into trauma. I didn't even know I was holding onto those things I had learned about our ancestors, which is often how generational trauma works.”

Initially, Roy wasn’t sure of the story, but when Taylor read it, he encouraged her to pursue the project further and develop it into a book.

“He said some really wonderful things,” Roy said. “I still have the document that he made handwritten notes on. That was the start of The Magnificent Ruins.”

While Roy continued to work on the story alongside her professional pursuits as a creative executive, the novel really began to take shape during the pandemic.

“I brought together various trails of documents I had surrounding the story and put them together. I started looking at structure, and I then asked my friend Sunil Yapa [fellow author and PEN/Faulkner finalist], who knew the territory I was writing in, to read drafts of the story, one chapter at a time. He gave me feedback in installments, and at the end of it, I had a novel.”

In addition to writing, Roy is also the Director of Original Programming at STARZ/Lionsgate, where she oversees the acquisition and creative development of original scripted television series. Balancing her film and television career alongside writing demands structure.

“Because I have such an intensive job, I have to write early in the morning,” Roy said. “I have to wake up, work out, write, and shower. If I miss a step of that structured routine, then the day can be a wash. Something I heard once and have followed like religion since is that if you write 500 words a day, or revise five pages, five days a week, the book will get written. It won't get written the way full-time novelists can write it maybe, but it will get written. I love my job, and I think I’d be equally productive, maybe even a little less so, if I didn’t have it. Maybe someday I'll just write, but I really like the balance of both. It doesn't leave me with time for much else, but I like this life.”

Despite her packed schedule, Roy believes her work as a writer and her work as a creative television executive fit hand in hand, complementing each other nicely. 

“I want to say it's different brains, but it's the same muscle really. For instance, when I’m giving notes on a show in development or production, it could be based on a piece of IP, like a book. And when we’re developing TV shows, we’re working through what the whole show will look like with multiple seasons. It’s similar to how you can’t write a novel unless you have a blueprint of where you’re going. It’s exercising those same muscles."

Prior to STARZ, Roy worked at Endeavor Content, overseeing series (Normal People, Nine Perfect Strangers) and scripted podcasts ( Blackout, Ghostwriter), and at AGBO, Joe and Anthony Russo’s television studio. Originally from India, Tara has lived in South Africa and the UK, and diverse, global storytelling is her priority. She is a 2020 alumni of the CAPE (Coalition of Asian Pacific Executives in Entertainment) Leaders Program and at STARZ, is a jury member of the STARZ #TakeTheLead director’s program, which is designed to create more directing opportunities for women and people. Tara is also a playwright. She lives in Los Angeles with too many plants.