While quite a few novelists have had the opportunity to write the screenplay for the film version of their books, very few have also been given a seat in the director's chair... until Dominique Paul (left) made a deal with the producers of Monster to write and direct the film version of The Possibility of Fireflies, which will star Kelly Preston and Michelle Trachtenberg. Pretty quick turnaround for a YA novel that's only recently shown up in bookstores...

There's Dalton Trumbo's Johnny Got His Gun, Michael Crichton's The Great Train Robbery, Norman Mailer's Tough Guys Don't Dance, Rebecca Miller's Personal Velocity and... well, I think that was it. (Although Romain Gary wrote the stories for the two movies he directed, neither one had anything to do with his many novels.) But if you do think of anyone else who qualifies, let us know!

UPDATE: The movie newsblog Cinematical has a few more names: Stephen King (Maximum Overdrive), Clive Barker (Hellraiser, Nightbreed), and William Peter Blatty (The Ninth Configuration, Exorcist III). Also, maybe Frank Miller because he co-directed Sin City. Duane Swierczynski emailed us some of those names while I was surfing the web, and Maxim Jakubowski wrote to remind us that Virginie Despentes co-directed the film version of Baise-Moi...and to give us a heads-up on the imminent European release of C'est beau une ville la nuit, Richard Bohringer's film version of his own bestselling novel.