With ‘Taxi Driver and Ballerina,’ Monterey author turns screenplay into romantic novella.

Taxi Driver and Ballerina by Kenny Lee from Monterey was first conceived as a screenplay. Lee is a screenwriter who still hopes his story will make it to Hollywood one day. As a novella, it was just published by ImprintPublisher and is available online.

It’s a simple love story that takes place on the streets of San Francisco and in Melbourne, Australia, where Debbie, the ballerina, hails from. But the main character is Joe Sanders who treasures his humble taxi driver job, despite a degree in philosophy. Debbie and Joe meet by accident in a residence club, and the whole set-up is loosely based on Lee’s own experience from college. He indeed met a couple of ballerinas who came to town for a workshop at the San Francisco Ballet.

When taking his first screenplay workshop, Lee heard that the hardest story to write is a love story. He decided to take up the challenge.

“You cannot copy from others' stories, and I guess most combinations are already used,” he says, admitting he is a romantic himself.

Lee decided to change the story into a novella to reach readers and get to Hollywood a roundabout way—through fiction. He has been working on Taxi Driver and Ballerina since 1996.

Lee wrote four screenplays to date. Another one is Lucky Dog, a story about a stray dog and an unhoused man; the dog turns out to be a lottery genius who always hits the numbers. The man becomes a billionaire overnight, but the problem is that every bad actor, from Saddam Hussein to Yakuza, wants to kidnap the dog.

“A lot of action,” Lee says. “And everybody loves dogs.”

When it comes to Taxi Driver and Ballerina, it might start as a traditional love story, but don’t expect the usual Hollywood ending. “Many stories are predictable,” Lee says. “But not this one.”

Before he started to write, Lee was a Korean language instructor at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, followed by a teaching career in San Jose. He likes to travel and observe how people live in other parts of the world.

To purchase Taxi Driver and Ballerina by Kenny Lee, visit Amazon.