Toby Ball's "The Vaults"

Toby Ball works at the Crimes against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire. The Vaults, his first novel, was published in September by St. Martin's Press.Here he shares his preferences for the above-the-line talent for a cinematic adaptation of the novel:I definitely did not write The Vaults with any particular actors in mind, though the sensibility of gangster movies from the 1930s and 40s was very much an influence. That said, casting the film had become a popular conversation topic, generally over drinks.Here's my vision:Frank Frings would be played by Ed Norton of t

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Anna Elliott's "Dark Moon of Avalon"

Anna Elliott is the author of the Twilight of Avalon Trilogy from Simon & Schuster's Touchstone imprint. The trilogy comprises Twilight of Avalon, Dark Moon of Avalon, and the upcoming Sunrise of Avalon.Here she lays out her actor preferences for the lead roles in an adaptation of Dark Moon of Avalon:In Dark Moon of Avalon, the young former High Queen Isolde and her friend and protector Trystan are reunited in a new and dangerous quest to keep the usurper Lord Marche and his Saxon allies from the throne of Britain. Using Isolde's wit and talent for healing and Trystan's strength and brav

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Meg Gardiner's Jo Beckett series

Meg Gardiner's novels include the Jo Beckett series -- The Dirty Secrets Club, The Memory Collector, and The Liar's Lullaby.Here she shares her thinking about casting a big screen adaptation of the novels:I’m outside the box, thinking.The characters in the Jo Beckett series live vividly, and sometimes obstreperously, inside my head. I know what they look like. So do readers—when I asked them who should play the characters in the movie, I got twenty-five different answers.So, how can I pick a single cast? In this era of HD, 3D, avatars and performance capture, why collapse the possibilities

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Joan Frances Turner's "Dust"

Joan Frances Turner was born in Rhode Island and grew up in the Calumet Region of northwest Indiana. A graduate of Brown University and Harvard Law School, she lives near the Indiana Dunes with her family and a garden full of spring onions and tiger lilies, weather permitting.Dust, her first novel, is a story of the undead from their own point of view, as they battle time, decay, the loved ones they left behind, encroaching humanity and each other. Or, think Watership Down with zombies instead of rabbits.Here she explains who ought to do the makeup on a cinematic adaptation of Dust...a

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Joanne Rendell's "Out of the Shadows"

Joanne Rendell's novels include The Professors' Wives' Club, Crossing Washington Square, and the recently released Out of the Shadows.Here she shares some ideas for director and cast of a big screen adaptation of Out of the Shadows:When I fantasize about Out of the Shadows coming out on the big screen, I can’t help but think of the 2002 movie Possession (Neil LaBute’s screen adaptation of A.S. Byatt’s novel of the same name). My novel tells the story of Clara Fitzgerald, a woman who thinks she is related to the author of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley. On her journey to learn the truth, Clara unc

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Rick Mofina's "The Panic Zone"

Rick Mofina is a former crime reporter and the award-winning author of several acclaimed thrillers. He's interviewed murderers face-to-face on death row and patrolled with the LAPD and the RCMP. His true-crime articles have appeared in the New York Times, Marie Claire, Reader's Digest and Penthouse. He's reported from the U.S., Canada, the Caribbean, Africa, Qatar and Kuwait's border with Iraq.Mofina's novels include Every Fear, A Perfect Grave, Six Seconds, Vengeance Road, and the latest, The Panic Zone.  His thoughts about the actors who might star in an adaptation of The Panic

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Katrina Kittle's "The Blessings of the Animals"

Katrina Kittle is the author of Traveling Light, Two Truths and a Lie, and The Kindness of Strangers. The Kindness of Strangers was a BookSense pick and the winner of the 2006 Great Lakes Book Award for Fiction. Early chapters from that novel earned her grants from both the Ohio Arts Council and Culture Works. She earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Spalding University in Louisville.Here she shares her preferences for the above-the-line talent in an adaptation of her latest novel, The Blessings of the Animals:What a fun, fun game! I've been playing "casting director" for my other novel

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Thomas W. Young's "The Mullah's Storm"

Thomas W. Young has logged nearly 4,000 hours as a flight engineer for the Air National Guard in Afghanistan, Iraq, Bosnia, Kosovo, and elsewhere, including Latin America, the Horn of Africa, and the Far East. Military honors include two Air Medals, three Aerial Achievement Medals, and the Air Force Combat Action Medal. He continues to serve with the Air National Guard as a Senior Master Sergeant.He holds degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and studied writing there and at the Sewanee Writers' Conference, among other places. He is also the author of the oral history

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Gerald Elias' "Danse Macabre"

A graduate of Yale, Gerald Elias has been a Boston Symphony violinist, Associate Concertmaster of the Utah Symphony since 1988, Adjunct Professor of Music at the University of Utah, first violinist of the Abramyan String Quartet, and Music Director of the Vivaldi Candlelight concert series.Here he shares his preference for casting the lead in adaptations of his novels, Devil's Trill and the recently released Danse Macabre:Move over, De Niro and Pacino. For Daniel Jacobus in Devil's Trill and Danse Macabre I want Alan Arkin, in my mind one of America's greatest actors ever, who can play

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Matt Hilton's "Judgment and Wrath"

Matt Hilton is the Cumbrian author of the Joe Hunter thriller series, including Dead Men’s Dust, Judgement and Wrath, Slash and Burn, and Cut and Run, with further books in the series coming soon. He is a high ranking martial artist and has been a police officer and private security specialist, all of which lend an authenticity to the action scenes in his books.Here he shares some ideas for casting a big screen adaptation of Judgment and Wrath:OK, I admit to playing the ‘what if they made my book into a movie’ game and have mulled this over with some of my readers on occasion. It’s surpri

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