Leighton Gage's "Buried Strangers"

Leighton Gage is the author of the Chief Inspector Mario Silva crime novels.The producers of Buried Strangers have finished packaging the film. Gage took the opportunity to interview one of his characters about the casting.LG: Claudia Andrade, you’re going to be played by a relative unknown. How do you feel about that?CA: I’m pissed off. Let me ask you a question. Did you have anything to do with it?LG: The casting? No, I wasn’t consulted. I only wrote the book, and in Hollywood—CA: I asked you a simple question. I didn’t ask for one of your long-winded explanations. Stop hogging my air time.

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Lydia Millet's "How the Dead Dream"

Lydia Millet is the author of Omnivores, George Bush, Dark Prince of Love, My Happy Life, a winner of the 2003 PEN-USA Award for Fiction, Everyone’s Pretty, and Oh Pure and Radiant Heart.And How the Dead Dream, about which she has some ideas for cast and director should the book be adapted for the movies:The book tells about a businessman, a young real estate developer named T, who runs over a coyote in his car, begins to lose people he loves, and then spins out and starts breaking into zoos to be near animals that are on the brink of extinction. From the pantheon of available faces and sty

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Reed Farrel Coleman's Moe Prager Mystery Series

Reed Farrel Coleman, on casting an adaptation of his Moe Prager Mystery Series:Why I Won’t PlayI was one of those college students who paid careful attention in class because I took terrible notes. In retrospect, I probably would’ve been better served by improving my note taking skills. Much of what my professors had to say blended into a kind of buzzing. Certain lessons, however, have persisted even after thirty years. One lesson in particular, taught by Jim Merritt, my instructor for Romantic Poetry at Brooklyn College, has had a profound effect on my writing. Oddly enough, it wasn’t a

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Malena Lott's "Dating da Vinci"

Malena Lott is the author of the recently released Dating da Vinci.Here she lays out some casting ideas for a film adaptation of the novel:I love movies almost, but not quite, as much as I love books. In writing classes, you often get the tip to find models or actors in magazines to cut out and storyboard for the physical character development of your novel. I tend to choose actors because I may like certain mannerisms or their charisma on screen, just as much as having the "look" I'm going for. I did this with Dating da Vinci, a tale of love, longing and la dolce vita. Bookopolis said that D

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Rachael King's "The Sound of Butterflies"

Rachael King's debut novel The Sound of Butterflies, which was among the top three bestselling New Zealand fiction titles in her native country for 12 weeks when it was published in July 2006, was released in the U.S. by William Morrow in 2007.Here she shares some preferences for cast and director for a cinematic adaptation of the novel:I'm sure that all writers day-dream about who might play their characters in a film; certainly I have been asked enough by my friends, and it's always a fun game to play. I have no interest in the A-list, such as Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie; I'm much more inte

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Tony Richards' "Dark Rain"

Tony Richards is the author of five novels—the first was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award—plus many short stories and articles. His work has appeared in numerous venues, including The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Cemetery Dance, Asimov's, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, and Weird Tales.Here he shares some casting ideas for a cinematic adaptation of his latest novel, Dark Rain:The characters in Dark Rain are many, varied, and in some cases extremely weird. And in a few instances, an actor springs immediately to mind. Ideally, Dr. Lehman Willets, the only African-American in

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Jason Goodwin's "The Snake Stone"

Jason Goodwin's Edgar Award–winning series set in Istanbul at the end of the Ottoman Empire--The Janissary Tree, The Snake Stone, and coming in 2009, The Bellini Card--features Investigator Yashim: detective, polyglot, chef, eunuch.Here Goodwin explores some casting options for a cinematic adaptation of the books: Orientalist painters in the 19th century fell over themselves to capture the Ottoman Empire on canvas. They painted the mosques and domes, the palaces and bazaars, and of course the naked odalisques, reclining with their pipes. They captured the tilework and the black eunuchs,

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Charles Cumming's "The Spanish Game"

Charles Cumming is a British spy novelist who has been hailed as the heir apparent to John le Carré. His most recent novel, Typhoon, was published in the UK to huge critical acclaim. Cumming’s first novel, A Spy By Nature, has just been released in the US in paperback. The sequel, The Spanish Game, is available in hardcover from St. Martin’s Press.Here he speculates on casting the lead in a film adaptation of The Spanish Game:A recent review of my novel, The Spanish Game, described the central character, Alec Milius, as “excessively paranoid, a womanizer, an alcoholic, and generally of questi

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Jeff Carlson's "Plague Year"

Jeff Carlson's short fiction has appeared in venues such as Asimov's, Strange Horizons, Fantastic Stories, and Writers of the Future XXIII. His first novel, Plague Year, was published last year. His new novel, Plague War, was published this summer.Here he lays out some casting ideas for a film adaptation of Plague Year:Will Smith. Doesn’t everyone say Will Smith? Give me Will Smith and my head will explode with excitement. Sure, the lead character in Plague Year is a 25-year-old Hispanic, but that’s easily changed. For example, in Catherine Ryan Hyde’s novel Pay It Forward, the male lea

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James Scott Bell's "Try Dying"

James Scott Bell is the author of Try Dying, Try Darkness, and the forthcoming Try Fear.Here he develops some ideas for film adaptations of the novels:My series featuring L.A. lawyer Ty Buchanan and the basketball playing nun, Sister Mary, has been described as "L.A. noir meets Nick and Nora at the intersection of Ellroy and Chandler." And that's fine with me, because I wanted to do contemporary suspense in a style that could have been published in 1947 (I think much of the genre these days pushes the darkness beyond "too far").So it's no surprise that my favorite movie genre is film noir of

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Noah Charney's "The Art Thief"

Noah Charney holds degrees in art history from the Courtauld Institute of Art and Cambridge University. He is the founding director of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art (ARCA), the first international think tank on art crime.Here he spells out his thoughts on--and ideal cast for--a film adaptation of his debut novel, The Art Thief:Readers often tell me that my novel, The Art Thief, would make a great film. The question of who would play which role is delicious fun for authors, during slow rainy days and hot sunny ones, as we'd be lying if we authors didn't say that we thin

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Colin Cotterill's "Curse of the Pogo Stick"

Colin Cotterill is the author of The Coroner’s Lunch, Thirty-Three Teeth, Disco for the Departed, and Anarchy and Old Dogs, featuring seventy-three year old Dr. Siri Paiboun, national coroner of Laos. He and his wife live in Chiang Mai, Thailand, where he teaches at the university.Here he considers several casting approaches for a film adaptation of Curse of the Pogo Stick, the latest novel in the Dr. Siri Paiboun series:It’s my own silly fault. I know that now. How am I ever going to break into Hollywood without a western protagonist? My sin, you see, is that all my characters are Lao. There

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Steve Brewer's "Lonely Street"

Steve Brewer is the author of the Bubba Mabry mystery series and the Drew Gavin mystery series in addition to a handful of stand alone crime novels.Here he reveals which actors are starring in the forthcoming film adaptation of his novel Lonely Street, and identifies a few actors who might have played some of the roles in a different production:An author may have a movie star in mind when he's writing his book, but it's practically guaranteed that Hollywood will choose someone else.The director and producers have their own favorite stars. There are myriad business reasons that actors get pi

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Humphrey Hawksley's "Security Breach"

Humphrey Hawksley's latest novel Security Breach has been acclaimed as the international thriller of the new Cold War.Here he develops some ideas for its cinematic adaptation:Security Breach is a story of high-action and complex relationships – all of it revolving around the smart, vulnerable, kick-ass heroine, Kat Polinski.I would like to develop the filmic style around the The Washington Post’s description of the book -- Die Hard meets 1984.One idea would be to introduce two highly talented, but relatively unknown action actors into the lead roles, such as Livvy Scott or Emily Beecham as K

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Lin Anderson's "Easy Kill"

Easy Kill is Lin Anderson's latest novel featuring the forensic scientist Dr. Rhona MacLeod.Here Anderson speculates on which actor might best portray MacLeod, who the Guardian's reviewer called "a complex and engaging protagonist," in a film adaptation of the novel:Easy Kill is the latest book in my crime thriller series starring forensic scientist Rhona MacLeod. Readers tend to stay with a series because they grow fond of the characters and want to know what happens to them next. The crime is important but essentially a crime book is about the character rather than the crime. Being asked to

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Eric Stone's "Flight of the Hornbill"

Eric Stone is the author of the novels Living Room of the Dead and Grave Imports. Additionally, he wrote the non-fiction book Wrong Side of the Wall.Here he develops some ideas for director and cast for a cinematic adaptation of his new novel, Flight of the Hornbill:I don’t expect a movie of any of my books to actually be much like my books. I’m not sure I’d want it to be. I want different things from movies and books. They’d be welcome to add action and plot elements if they wanted, so long as they stayed true to the characters, settings and basic ideas. So I’ve never given much thought as t

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Suzanne Kingsmill's "Forever Dead"

Suzanne Kingsmill is the author of Forever Dead, a fast paced murder mystery featuring zoology professor Cordi O'Callaghan who discovers a bear ravaged body in the wilderness and has her life turned upside down because of it.Here she shares her idea of a dream cast, director, and producer for a film adaptation of the novel:I had no actors in mind when I wrote my murder mystery Forever Dead. However, while watching TV my characters have sometimes jumped out at me after their creation. I saw Cordi O'Callaghan, my lead character and a university zoology professor, in Julia Roberts as she grapple

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Dave Zeltserman's "Small Crimes"

Dave Zeltserman's books include Fast Lane, Bad Thoughts and Bad Karma, and a three-book "man just out of prison" noir series that kicks off with Small Crimes.Here he spells out the ideal cast for an adaptation of Small Crimes:Small Crimes is the first of three "man just out of prison" noir thrillers of mine that Serpent's Tail will be publishing. In this case, the man out of prison is Joe Denton, a disgraced ex-cop who got sent away when trying to destroy evidence for a corruption case being built against him ended up stabbing the DA, Phil Coakley, 13 times in the face and horribly disfi

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Peter Behrens' "The Law of Dreams"

Peter Behrens is the author of the short story collection, Night Driving, and other stories and essays, and the internationally-acclaimed novel, The Law of Dreams.Here he develops some ideas for a cinematic adaptation of the novel:The director of The Law of Dreams has to be Terrence Malick.There's a problem with casting, from a strategic dollars and cents standpoint, because the two leads are wild Irish children, or teenagers (in 1847 the concept 'teenager' hadn't been invented yet). Daniel Radcliffe would've worked for Fergus O'Brian, until about a year ago. Fergus has a lot to do with ho

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