“The Chicken Sisters ”Author KJ Dell’Antonia Is a Fan of the TV Series: ‘I Love the Way They Adapted It’ (Exclusive)
Dell’Antonia’s bestselling novel, about two families operating competing fried chicken restaurants, was adapted into a Hallmark+ series
KJ Dell’Antonia’s bestselling novel, The Chicken Sisters, has taken on a new life since it was first published in 2019.
Centering two families who own competing fried chicken restaurants in the fictional town of Merinac, Kan., the novel, and its quirky cast of characters, has warmed the hearts of readers, gotten tapped by Reese Witherspoon’s book club and was turned into a TV series for Hallmark+ this year.
But for Dell’Antonia, previously an editor for the New York Times Motherlode blog, writing fiction didn’t always feel like a feasible goal.
“To me, writing fiction seemed harder and more important,” the author tells PEOPLE. “Journalism was what I was doing to become a better writer and to know more about the world and people in the world before I felt ready to write fiction, or maybe before I felt brave enough to write fiction.”
Dell’Antonia, who grew up between Texas and Kansas, has been an enthusiastic writer since childhood English class assignments. The author says that the inspiration for The Chicken Sisters stemmed close to home: namely, in the two fried chicken restaurants, Chicken Annie’s and Chicken Mary’s, located in Pittsburgh and Frontenac, Kan.
“I grew up going only to Chicken Annie's, because we were a Chicken Annie's family, and always thinking about that,” Dell’Antonia says. And while the two eateries would inspire Chicken Mimi’s and Chicken Frannie’s — the restaurants in the novel — it wasn't until the author moved to a small town in New England that the book really came together.
“I fed on that in terms of what would be close to each other and what would be there and how the people would know each other and interact,” Dell’Antonia says. “We know the people who run the store, but, also, you're going to know half the people in there.”
The heart of The Chicken Sisters, however, is the complicated relationship between its two central characters, sisters Amanda and Mae, who are on opposite sides of the chicken shack feud. Amanda stayed behind in Merinac to work at Frannie’s following a family tragedy, while Mae has found success in New York City as a lifestyle personality.
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“I was the kid who left. I got out of Kansas as fast as humanly possible and really never looked back,” Dell'Antonia says. “But then, especially when I got older and moved to a small town and saw the value of raising kids and being in a small place like that, I started to see the other side of it and how being someone who'd been there your whole life would have its own value.”
“I kind of conceived of Mae and Amanda as these two women that they made such different choices,” the author continues. “They're still pretty young, but they desperately want each other's approval … It's this fundamental conflict that's not really solvable. Neither of them is right. There's joy to both sides of it.”
Mae and Amanda came to life onscreen this year in The Chicken Sisters’ Hallmark+ series adaptation, starring Genevieve Angelson, Schuyler Fisk and Lea Thompson. Dell’Antonia says that seeing her characters on the show, which aired its season one finale on Oct. 24, still feels "very surreal." The series does take some liberties with the novel too. One of the biggest, Dell’Antonia notes, is that Amanda’s husband, Frank — played by James Kot — is alive and well in the TV adaptation, though Amanda was a widow in the book.
“It doesn't bother me at all,” Dell’Antonia says. “I love the way they adapted it. I think it's perfect, and it gives them room to do a lot more interesting story things.” And though Dell’Antonia was not involved in the show’s writing process (“I am not a person who knows how to write a TV show”), she is open to gaining more knowledge about the craft in the future.
“If they do a second season, which my fingers are totally crossed for, I'm going to go and sit in and hopefully learn,” she says.
In addition to writing novels — the author describes her latest release, 2023’s Playing the Witch Card as "The Chicken Sisters but witches” — Dell’Antonia also shares her story insight on her podcast, #AmWriting. Co-hosted with authors Jessica Lahey and Sarina Bowen, #AmWriting provides craft advice and tips for writers of all genres. The biggest piece of wisdom that Dell’Antonia has carried with her, she notes, is that writing is a skill that can be learned.
“There's often an illusion that people are either good writers or they're not good writers, or you can tell a story or you can't tell a story, but nobody is born knowing how to structure a book,” the author says.
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And with The Chicken Sisters’ story now available for a whole new set of viewers, Dell’Antonia says that one of the biggest rewards is paying tribute to her roots.
“By and large, I have heard nothing but positive happiness at seeing these really beloved iconic restaurants, portrayed and brought out into the larger world in this way,” the author says. “And that has been really fun for me. Kansas doesn't get a lot of pop culture love, and I was really excited to give it a little.”
The Chicken Sisters is now streaming on Hallmark+.
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