Patti Smith Taking ‘Just Kids’ Memoir to Big Screen

, the artist whose 1975 debut album Horses is often cited as one of the greatest in music history for its role in shaping the punk movement in NYC, can now add screenwriter to her already extensive resume.

Smith’s National Book Award-winning memoir Just Kids, which documents her previous relationship with now deceased black-and-white photographer Robert Mapplethorpe in 1970s New York, is soon to become a major motion picture.

Cinema Blend had the following to say about Patti’s book:

“The evocatively written, deeply emotional book covers Smith’s entire life, but is focused around her relationship with the photographer and artist Robert Mapplethorpe, which started out romantic until he came out; they continued living together in the Hotel Chelsea and remaining deeply entwined in each others’ lives until his death from AIDS in 1989. The book chronicles their time living with grinding poverty in Brooklyn and the East Village, each of them arriving onto the art scene in the 70s and crossing paths with everyone from Andy Warhol to Janis Joplin. It’s an amazing, amazing book…”

According to CBS, Smith will work alongside of Tony Award winning playwright John Logan – famous for his work on films such as Gladiator, The Aviator, and Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street – to adapt the novel into a film.

In addition to working on the Just Kids screen-adaptation, Smith is also developing a second memoir, writing a mystery novel, penning several books of poetry, and just released a career-spanning greatest hits compilation entitled Outside Society.

Here is Patti Smith performing her most widely known song, Because the Night: