The roots for Lifetime's first Asian-centered holiday movie stretch from Hollywood all the way to Barrington, Rhode Island.

Eirene Donohue, who grew up in Barrington, wrote the screenplay for the film titled "A Sugar and Spice Holiday." The Lifetime movie breaks new ground as it features a story focused on Asian characters.

"For most of my career I was writing white characters for a white audience, but thankfully that has changed in the past few years," Ms. Donohue wrote in a recent email to the Barrington Times. "The push for diversity and inclusion has really opened up the market and now the majority of my projects that I'm developing have Asian protagonists. It's exciting to be a part of this new wave of Asian representation."

Ms. Donohue said that when she was growing up, there were no movies or television shows that centered around Asian characters.

"… it's so important for kids to know that their experiences are important and their stories are worth telling. Not just as sidekicks or tokens, but as the main character," she wrote. "Don't wait for anyone else to tell your story. If you have something to say you have to find a way to speak up."

Barrington roots

The Donohue children grew up in Hampden Meadows, a short walk from the White Church Bridge. Ms. Donohue's parents — Mai and Brian — still live in the same home, and Eirene and her siblings visit as often as possible.

Ms. Donohue, her husband Brad, and their daughter Tofino now live in Los Angeles, Calif., but she often misses her hometown.

"I might have complained about it growing up, but I'm really grateful I grew up in Barrington," Ms. Donohue wrote. "It's such a beautiful place and such a supportive community. Two of my best friends from high school live in LA and we see each other all the time which is awesome. This was the first year since I moved to LA that I didn't get to come home for the summer and I really miss it. Every time I come home to visit I don't want to leave."

Eirene and her siblings learned quickly from their parents that hard work was the key to future success.

"In my family, books and reading were very important and our house was like a giant library. My father was a writer and always encouraged me to follow my passions. Same with my mom," she wrote. "…my parents are pretty much the 'wicked awesomest.' We didn't have a lot of money growing up and there were a lot of us, but they always made sure that we had whatever we needed. They both taught us that we could be whatever we wanted to be as long as we worked hard enough."

In high school, Eirene worked at the old American Video store in the Barrington Shopping Center. She calls it her dream job — "I could just watch movies all day," she said. "I was convinced that I was going to be the next Quentin Tarantino."

Ms. Donohue went to Brown University and took some film courses, but found herself drawn more toward creative non-fiction writing. After graduating from Brown, she spent time traveling. She met her husband while backpacking and visiting family in Vietnam. They later moved to Japan and taught English for two years, then spent time surfing in Indonesia and later relocated to South Africa where they got their yacht-master sailing certification.

Eventually, Ms. Donohue and her husband landed back in Rhode Island — she worked various jobs and spent much of her time writing. When her husband was away for six weeks on a yacht delivery, Ms. Donohue decided to try writing a screenplay.

"I got some books on how to write screenplays and read some screenplays and wrote one — a teen romantic comedy called Stand Up Straight," she wrote. "I entered it into the Nicholl Fellowship which is run by the Academy Awards and made it all the way to the semifinals.

"Around this time my husband and I decided we weren't living the life we wanted to live and so we sold everything we owned and spent the next year living in our VW van traveling around the US and Canada. Along the way I connected with my manager and agent and decided to stay in LA. I sold my first project, a pitch for a female college comedy, called Girls Night Out to Lionsgate. It wasn't made, but it got me into the Writer's Guild which was great."

'Borington'

Ms. Donohue was also hired to write a teen comedy for MTV called Ladies Man: A Made Movie. It was produced and can be found on iTunes.

"Then I sold a TV pilot to ABC studios. It was called Borington and was based on my time living with my parents and on my sister Maeve's life. It was about a 30 year old who, after traveling the world, moves home and starts dating her high school sweetheart who also has just moved home to live with his parents. The parents were totally based on my parents and the pilot episode included a scene where they sneak onto the golf course at night just like we used to do in high school. I'm still really sad it never got made because it's one of my favorite scripts," Ms. Donohue wrote.

Ms. Donohue later sold a pilot to Freeform, a show called Adultish, and also wrote a teen vampire screenplay for Lifetime called Drink Slay Love. She wrote a musical called Rock the Kitchen for the Disney Channel — it was about a teenage chef at an elite cooking camp.

Ms. Donohue is also excited about the script she wrote for a feature film called Time Out. She said it was about a mom struggling with "mom rage and the loss of identity who goes on a road trip with her childless best friend through the desert."

"Currently Lucy Liu is attached to star and direct and produce it which is super amazing because she's wicked awesome and has been a hero of mine for years," Ms. Donohue wrote. "We're still trying to get financing on it and COVID has slowed it down but hopefully something will happen with that soon because it's a very personal project for me and probably the best thing I've ever written."

Sugar and Spice

Ms. Donohue has always been a fan of holiday movies, so it was probably just a matter of time before she penned a screenplay for one. Last year she started pitching some holiday movie ideas: "I'd seen a Food Network special on the national gingerbread baking competition and found it fascinating. So I pitched an idea of doing a story based on that and Lifetime bought it. A Sugar and Spice Holiday is the first Asian-centered holiday movie they've made which is really exciting."

The movie is about an ambitious architect who returns to her hometown for Christmas and falls in love with her old high school crush while competing together in a local gingerbread baking competition.

Ms. Donohue often pulls from her own life while writing, and that was also the case with Sugar and Spice, which offers quite a few Barrington references.

"It's set in Hampden Meadows, Maine and the other towns in the competition are Rumstick Point, Maple Village and South Sowams. The local bar is called Eagles," Ms. Donohue wrote. "The main character's grandmother is called Nema, which is what we call my mom. And most of the character names are from friends and family."

A Sugar and Spice Holiday will air on Lifetime on Sunday, Dec. 13 at 8 p.m. It will also be on demand and rerunning periodically for the rest of the season.

Super market sightings

Living and working in Hollywood is not exactly glamourous, Ms. Donohue wrote.

"Every once in a while I bump into a celebrity at the super market but most days it's just me and my computer writing in my laundry room. Or fighting traffic just to get to a crowded playground. That being said, I'm incredibly grateful for my life here and my career. It's an incredibly competitive industry and there is so much uncertainty and rejection. I've been fortunate to work with some great people on some fun projects," she wrote.

"Most of the stuff I write never gets made. That's just how the industry works. Even when you manage to sell something, most of the time it never gets produced. So it's exciting for me to have something people can actually watch. It's just a cheesy little rom com, but it's sweet and fun and I think that's something a lot of us are craving right now."