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SWFL Author's Novella Becomes Hallmark Christmas Movie

Hallmark Channel

The holiday season is upon us — and with it, the season for the hopelessly romantic TV movies that have become a tradition for many during the month December. Hallmark Channel’s Christmas movies have become such a sappy staple, the likes of even Netflix has now begun to imitate the art of the feel-good films this season.

One of the many at-home fans of the genre was Gwendolyn Heasley. She’s a Naples author who had the familiar thought of “Hey, I could write this” while watching one — and then, she actually did.

Heasley joins Gulf Coast Live to talk about her novella, “Miss Christmas,” which was turned into a Hallmark movie that premiered on the network this year.

Rachel Iacovone is a reporter and associate producer of Gulf Coast Live for WGCU News. Rachel came to WGCU as an intern in 2016, during the presidential race. She went on to cover Florida Gulf Coast University students at President Donald Trump's inauguration on Capitol Hill and Southwest Floridians in attendance at the following day's Women's March on Washington.Rachel was first contacted by WGCU when she was managing editor of FGCU's student-run media group, Eagle News. She helped take Eagle News from a weekly newspaper to a daily online publication with TV and radio branches within two years, winning the 2016 Society of Professional Journalists Mark of Excellence Award for Best Use of Multimedia in a cross-platform series she led for National Coming Out Day. She also won the Mark of Excellence Award for Feature Writing for her five-month coverage of an FGCU student's transition from male to female.As a WGCU reporter, she produced the first radio story in WGCU's Curious Gulf Coast project, which answered the question: Does SWFL Have More Cases of Pediatric Cancer?Rachel graduated from Florida Gulf Coast University with a bachelor's degree in journalism.