Russell saw thematic parallels between My Dog Skip and other projects he had directed, including the independent film "End Of The Line." "Everything that I’ve done up to this point has somehow tied into the American experience."

The project was also championed early on by Russell’s friend, screenwriter/ filmmaker John Lee Hancock. "Soon after it came out, I read My Dog Skip, then called Jay one afternoon and discovered he’d already read it," recalls Hancock. "Our reaction was the same: this is a story that’ll make a great movie."

After obtaining the rights, Russell and Hancock sought a screenwriter who they felt was intimate with the Southern experience and also capable of taking a book rife with stream-of-consciousness memories and turning it into a linear feature film. Hancock brought the project to Gail Gilchriest, a friend and former writer for The Houston Post, as well as the author of two books. Though her screenwriting experience was limited to only one previous project, the pair admired her writing and had confidence that she was right for the job.

The book had the same nostalgic effect on Gilchriest. "Though I grew up 30 years after him, I felt Willie Morris and I shared a very similar childhood: his in Yazoo, Mississippi, mine in Silsbee, Texas, a little town filled with old houses, water holes and good storytellers," says Gilchriest.