Joanna Hershon's "The German Bride"

Joanna Hershon is the author of Swimming, The Outside of August, and the highly acclaimed The German Bride. Her writing has appeared in One Story, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Post Road, the literary anthology Brooklyn Was Mine, and was shortlisted for the 2007 O. Henry Prize Stories.Here she shares her thoughts on cast and director for a cinematic adaptation of The German Bride:I do love a good casting session and when Vanity Fair asked me last March to "cast my novel" shortly after The German Bride was published, I admit to becoming s

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Marie Brennan's "Midnight Never Come"

Marie Brennan holds an undergraduate degree in archaeology and folklore from Harvard and is now pursuing a Ph.D. in anthropology and folklore at Indiana University.Her academic background comes in useful for the fantasy stories and novels she writes.Here she shares some ideas for the actors and director for film adaptations of the novels in her Onyx Court series:I'm very bad at visualizing faces, so I do occasionally try to "cast" my characters, in order to have a reference point to work from. In my Onyx Court series of London-based historical fantasies -- installments so far are the Elizabe

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Julie Compton's "Tell No Lies"

Julie Compton practiced law in St. Louis, Missouri, and more recently worked as a trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice.About Tell No Lies, her first novel, from the Florida Sun-Sentinel:“Tell No Lies has all the requisites of legal thrillers including courtroom dramas and lawyers' behind the scenes work… Compton proves she has real storytelling skills. Tell No Lies' final twist is as stunning as that classic surprise in Scott Turow's Presumed Innocent.”Here Compton shares some ideas for the principal cast should Tell No Lies be adapted for the big screen:As a novelist, the second

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Karen Harrington's "Janeology"

Karen Harrington is a former speechwriter, turned stay-home-mom. Her psychological suspense novel, Janeology, debuted last year.Here she shares a few thoughts about the potential challenge of adapting her uniquely structured novel and offers a few ideas about casting the lead roles:When I was invited to participate in My Book, The Movie, I had the same thought as Daniel Wallace, author of Big Fish when he said something like “If you asked me if my novel could be made into a movie, I would have said it had just as likely a chance as being made into a car.”Why?Like Wallace’s work (which has bee

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Cheryl Norman's "Running Scared"

Cheryl Norman won the 2003 EPPIE award for her contemporary romance, Last Resort. Her debut with Medallion, Restore My Heart, earned her a mention in Publishers Weekly as one of ten new romance authors to watch.Here she shares some casting ideas for her latest novel Running Scared, should it be adapted for the large or small screen:I first wrote Running Scared so many years ago that the actors I had in mind at the time have aged beyond the roles. I based Ashley Adams, the newly divorced marathon runner who witnesses a murder while training, on Lisa Hartman-Black. Homicide Detective Rick E

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Dan Elish's "The Misadventures of Justin Hearnfeld"

Dan Elish is the author of the novel Nine Wives as well as several books for young adults and children including the award-winning Born Too Short, Confessions of an 8th Grade Basket Case, The Worldwide Dessert Contest, Jason and the Baseball Bear, and The Great Squirrel Uprising.Here he explains which actors and directors he would like to see adapt his latest novel, The Misadventures of Justin Hearnfeld, for the big screen: Who would I want to star in my novel, The Misadventures of Justin Hearnfeld, if it were turned into a movie? I’ll answer like this: it almost was. Well, not quite. But the

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Joel Shepherd's "Crossover"

Joel Shepherd was born in Adelaide, South Australia, in 1974. He has studied Film and Television, International Relations, has interned on Capitol Hill in Washington, and traveled widely in Asia. His first trilogy, the Cassandra Kresnov Series, consists of Crossover, Breakaway and Killswitch.Here he gives some guidance for casting some of the characters in a film adaptation of the novel:Casting Crossover the movie actually isn’t going to be that easy... or at least not if it’s done well. The supporting cast could be relatively straight forward, but Cassandra Kresnov herself is another story

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Mike Brotherton's "Spider Star"

Mike Brotherton is a professor of Astronomy at the University of Wyoming, Laramie, and the author of the novels Star Dragon and Spider Star.Here he shares some ideas about who might direct and star in a cinematic adaptation of Spider Star...and establishes without equivocation the director he most definitely does not want to see anywhere near the project:My novel Spider Star from Tor Books is a far-future space adventure with starships, aliens, advanced technology, and a lot of astronomy. Unfortunately a lot of Hollywood movies with these elements wind up being pretty dumb, with Armageddon

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