Titan1Studios Developing YA Book Series The Coseema Saga for Television

Canadian Writer Alison Hepburn (Dark Matter) to adapt Bridgette Dutta Portman debut novel The Twin Stars.

Alison Hepburn (Dark Matter) joins Titan1Studios to adapt Coseema Saga

Toronto, Canada - Titan1Studios has begun active development on The Twin Stars a television adaptation  of the fantasy/sci-fi YA novel series The Coseema Saga from author Bridgette Dutta Portman.

The Twin Stars, the first book in a trilogy was published by Titan1Studios in July of 2021 and its sequel The Silver Sail followed in May of this year. The series follows Olive Joshi, a multiethnic South Asian teenager overwhelmed by anxiety and grief, as she finds herself transported to the unfinished sci-fi saga she began writing in her youth. Landing on Lyria in the middle of a war, she has no idea how she or the planet she created will survive.

Shot primarily as live action, with animation overlay and cut sequences, representing the inner world of Olive’s imagination and anxiety. The Twin Stars will offer viewers a distinctive new vision and challenge the norms of YA programming. Alison Hepburn (DARK MATTER) will adapt the book series, which Kirkus Reviews described as having a “Lucasfilm-esque milieu,” with Titan1Studios’ Rathan Moorthy and Wes Ambrecht Executive Producing.

“This is a timely piece of writing that exemplifies our recent reckoning with the fact that mental health IS health. In Alison, we’ve found a scribe who can speak to the nuances of what it means to grapple with these issues every day and someone who clearly adores the sandbox that fantasy/sci-fi provides” said Ambrecht.

“In The Twin Stars, Bridgette gives us her journal, but it read just like mine. I’m grateful for her trust in bringing such a personal story to the screen and excited to take up Olive’s pen to play in a galaxy of anxiety and its foe, imagination,” stated Hepburn. “I’m delighted to be working with Rathan and Wes at Titan1Studios. They’ve nurtured this story from the beginning and boldly embraced the critical conversations around mental health and the vision we’ve created to replace its isolation with adventure.”

“From the earliest days of this company, the mission of Titan1Studios has been one of inclusivity. We feel very fortunate to be shepherding a sci-fi adventure as rich as The Coseema Saga, one which not only deals with mental health issues head on but also features a multi-ethnic lead” added Moorthy. “Bridgette is one of the most talented authors we’ve had the pleasure of working with and I know her and Olive’s worlds are in great hands with Alison.”

BOOK 1 - The Twin Stars - NOW AVAILABLE ON AMAZON, BARNES & NOBLE, and KOBO

BOOK 2 - The Silver Sail - NOW AVAILABLE on AMAZON, BARNES & NOBLE & KOBO

Titan1Studios recently set Lorien McKenna to adapt their comic series Zomben as an animated series. In addition to multiple video game projects, such as the recently Canada Media Fund (CMF) supported Love is a Rougelite (LIAR) and Events at Unity Farm, the company is working on a live-action adaptation of their graphic novel Knight Guardians of Relativity.

About TITAN1STUDIOS

Founded in 2016, TITAN1STUDIOS is an award-winning Cross-Media Content & Technology Studio specializing in Original IP.

The studio embraces diversity and representation across all facets of the creative process, which is reflected in our executives, artists and technology talent.

While our stories span the far reaches of time and space, our themes often hit much closer to home with a key emphasis on family, identity, mental health, and building a better tomorrow.

Our initial wave of comics and graphic novels included the KNIGHT GUARDIANS OF RELATIVITY and the all-ages hit ZOMBEN, properties that served as a bedrock of two separate and distinct universes: the Relativity Universe and the Multipocalypse Universe. The studio has since added a third universe, the Coseema Saga, based on our popular YA novel series.  All three offer unique world-building genre fair with cross-generational appeal and visually arresting artwork.

In entertainment technology, the company has embraced both real-time and remote production pipelines and is developing a robust toolkit for Visual Development, AI and Blockchain.

Our slate of projects include IPs in TV/Film, Animation, Gaming, Publishing, and the Metaverse.

Titan1Studios to help raise awareness for teenage mental health with publication of playwright Bridgette Dutta Portman’s debut novel, The Twin Stars

[Toronto, Canada}

Graphic Novel, Literary and Interactive publisher Titan1Studios is pleased to announce the publication of The Twin Stars, a debut novel by California-based playwright Bridgette Dutta Portman, available now on Amazon.

The Twin Stars tells the story of Olive Joshi, a 16-year-old girl with obsessive-compulsive disorder and self-doubt. Olive once found solace in writing in her journal, where she crafted a fantasy story about Coseema, the princess of a distant planet under conjoined suns. Coseema resembled Olive physically, but was bold, self-confident, powerful, and flawless—everything Olive was not. When Olive’s OCD and perfectionism began to interfere with her ability to write, she abandoned her story, leaving Coseema and her world in stasis. One day, while en route to India to attend her beloved grandmother’s funeral, Olive falls through a portal into her journal and into the fantasy world that she created.

The Twin Stars is aimed at young adult readers between 13 and 18 years old, particularly those with an interest in the sci-fi/fantasy genre and those who struggle with mental health challenges. While Olive navigates through fantastical adventures on a planet born from her own imagination, her experiences mirror those that all teenagers face: the development of self-confidence and self-expression, the pursuit of friendships and romantic relationships, conflicts with siblings and parents, and the need to manage grief, change, and uncertainty.

Olive suffers from a mental illness, OCD, which manifests itself in the antagonistic forces in her fictional world. This anxiety disorder can be particularly debilitating for teenagers, who often lack insight into the condition and feel resistant to sharing their worries and compulsions with parents or teachers. The Twin Stars fuses sci-fi-fantasy adventure with a story about a teen’s struggle with her own mind. The aim is both to normalize and bring visibility to characters with mental health issues and to broaden the novel’s appeal to teens outside the sci-fi/fantasy genre who may struggle with mental and emotional disorders.

The Twin Stars is the first in a series of novels that will form the Coseema Saga and extend an ecosystem across literary and graphic novels, animation, mobile experiences, and immersive interactive content, with the continued mission of raising mental health awareness in teens.

Early praise for The Twin Stars:

“The Lucasfilm-esque milieu, blending magic with exobiology, astrophysics, and a painless layering of multiculturalism, is a tantalizing one. Portman adds a layer of emotion via Olive’s struggle with obsessive-compulsive disorder and anxiety, which impinges on the storyline in a more meaningful way than just checking a box in the character mental health problems column. YA readers raised on various permutations of the superhero mythos should be enthralled by the Coseema/Olive dichotomy in this metafictional series opener.”
– Kirkus Reviews

Read more reviews on Good Reads:

About the Author:

Bridgette Dutta Portman is a playwright, teacher, and novelist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. More than two dozen of her plays have been produced locally, nationally, and internationally. She is past president of the Playwrights’ Center of San Francisco, was a 2018 resident playwright at Custom Made Theatre Co., and is currently a member of Same Boat Theater Collective, the Pear Writers' Guild and the Dramatists' Guild. She has been a finalist for the Bay Area Playwrights' Festival, the Theatre Bay Area TITAN award, the PlayPenn Conference, the Kentucky Women’s Theatre Conference Prize for Women Writers, the New Dramatists playwrights' residency, and more. 

Bridgette holds a PhD in political science (UC Irvine, 2011) and an MFA in creative writing (Spalding University, 2018). She lives in Fremont, CA with her husband Deepanshu and their two children. Learn more about Bridgette and her work at www.bridgetteduttaportman.com.

About Titan1Studios:

Founded in 2016, TITAN1STUDIOS is an award-winning Canadian Publishing, Interactive and Immersive Studio focused on the creation and promotion of uniquely representative and inclusive original content IP. TITAN1 embraces diversity and representation across creative, management, and production teams, while striving to explore universal and timeless themes that are relevant to all audiences.

As an incubator for original content, the studio has developed multiple acclaimed properties including Knight Guardians of Relativity, New Humanz, Unity Farm, Wild Frontier, and the all-ages hit zombie adventure ZOMBEN for Publishing, Interactive, Digital Platforms, TV & Film.

For more information about Titan1Studios, please visit: www.titan1studios.com