Hillary Jordan's "When She Woke"

Hillary Jordan received her BA in English and Political Science from Wellesley College and spent fifteen years working as an advertising copywriter before starting to write fiction. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University.Here she suggests which actors might play the main roles in a cinematic  adaptation of her 2011 novel, When She Woke:I can never see real people as my characters until I’m done creating them—I suppose I prefer to make the actors fit the characters rather than the other way around—so I didn’t start thinking about the casting for When She Woke u

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Rosamund Bartlett's "Tolstoy: A Russian Life"

Rosamund Bartlett's books include Wagner and Russia and the acclaimed Chekhov: Scenes from a Life. An authority on Russian cultural history, she has also achieved renown as a translator of Chekhov.Here she shares some suggestions for casting the leads in an adaptation of her latest book, Tolstoy: A Russian Life:The image of Tolstoy as an old sage is now deeply ingrained thanks to The Last Station. Christopher Plummer did a marvellous job, even if his character lacked Tolstoy’s gravitas. If they ever made my biography into a film, I'd like to concentrate on Tolstoy’s earlier years, when he

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John Burdett's "Vulture Peak"

John Burdett practiced law for 14 years in London and Hong Kong until he was able to retire to write full time. He has lived in France, Spain, Hong Kong and the U.K. and now commutes between Bangkok and Southwest France.Here he writes about the actor he'd like to see play the lead in an adaptation of Vulture Peak, the fifth and latest novel in his series featuring Royal Thai Police Detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep:I have always wanted Tony Leung (The Lover) to play Sonchai. That bony face and the way he can play the put-upon Asian to perfection seems right to me. Also, that obvious intelligence

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Stephanie Deutsch's "You Need a Schoolhouse"

Stephanie Deutsch's new book is You Need a Schoolhouse: Booker T. Washington, Julius Rosenwald, and the Building of Schools for the Segregated South.Here she explains which actors might play the main roles in a big screen adaptation of the book: When my friend Tony Rizzoli asked me what Julius Rosenwald looked like I gave a rather flip response. I said, “kind of nebbishy.” But even as these words were leaving my mouth I realized they were incorrect. In his later years Rosenwald actually looked like Tony – thin, not much hair, angular face, friendly, open expression. Twenty five years ago

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John Lescroart's "The Hunter"

John Lescroart's many novels include Damage, Treasure Hunt, The Betrayal, The Suspect, The Hunt Club, The Motive, The Second Chair, The First Law, The Oath, The Hearing, and Nothing But the Truth.His new novel is The Hunter.Here the author shares his pick for the actor to play the lead in an adaptation of the series:The Hunter is my third Wyatt Hunt novel, and I’d love to have Taylor Kitsch (the Tim Riggins character from Friday Night Lights) take on the role of Wyatt. He would be perfect. In fact, Taylor, if you’re out there reading this, call my agent. Seriously.Learn more about the book

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Sandra Balzo's "Triple Shot"

Sandra Balzo's novels have been nominated for both the Anthony and Macavity awards and received starred reviews from Kirkus and Booklist. In addition to her books about coffee-maven Maggy Thorsen and displaced journalist AnnaLise Griggs, Balzo writes short stories, two of which have been published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, winning the Macavity, Derringer and Robert L. Fish awards.Here she dreamcasts an adaptation of the Maggy Thorsen mysteries:Uncommon Grounds, the first Maggy Thorsen coffeehouse mystery, was published in 2004. Since then, I've written six more, the most recent being

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Michael T. Cannell's "The Limit"

Michael T. Cannell is a former editor of The New York Times Home section, publisher of thedesignvote.com, and author of I.M. Pei: Mandarin of Modernism.Here he dreamcasts an adaptation of his new book, The Limit: Life and Death on the 1961 Grand Prix Circuit:Believe it or not, I sold the movie rights to The Limit: Life and Death on the 1961 Grand Prix Circuit before writing its first sentence. It was pure luck.. Another book about mid-century racing was soon to be published with its own movie deal. My agent managed to sell the rights to The Limit up front so the rival project wouldn’t get too

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Helen Landalf's "Flyaway"

Helen Landalf’s debut YA novel, Flyaway, released on December 20, 2011 from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Her other books include the award-winning picture book The Secret Night World of Cats (Smith and Kraus, 1998), illustrated by her autistic brother, Mark Rimland, and Movement Stories for Young Children (Smith and Kraus, 1996), a guide for teachers. Here she shares her preferences for the lead actors in an adaptation of Flyaway:In order to cast my contemporary realistic YA novel, Flyaway, which is about a 15-year-old girl struggling to come to terms with the fact that her mom is a meth addict

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Eben Miller's "Born along the Color Line"

Eben Miller teaches at Southern Maine Community College and lives in Lewiston, Maine.Here he dreamcasts an adaptation of his new book, Born along the Color Line: The 1933 Amenia Conference and the Rise of a National Civil Rights Movement: Casting my book as a movie, I'll start with the easiest role to fill. In this collective biography, the role of a distinct place—the Troutbeck estate in Amenia, New York—actually nears in significance to some of the main figures involved. Happily, the sylvan setting where the men and women I write about gathered together in 1933 remains largely intact as the

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Beth Fantaskey's "Jessica Rules the Dark Side"

Beth Fantaskey is the author of Jessica’s Guide to Dating on the Dark Side, Jekel Loves Hyde, and the newly released Jessica Rules the Dark Side.Here she explains her difficulty in imagining any particular actors portraying her characters on the big screen: I can’t, for the life of me, choose actors to play my characters. As I write, the people I create become very vivid in my imagination, and they never look like anyone but... themselves. Every now and then, readers will send me pictures of actors and say, “This is who I imagine as Lucius Vladescu.” Or, “This actress would be perfect as Je

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Charlie Price's "Desert Angel"

Charlie Price's novel, The Interrogation of Gabriel James, was hailed as “top-notch” by Kirkus Reviews, “surprising” by Booklist, and “gripping” by BCCB, and won the 2011 Edgar Award for Best Young Adult Mystery.Here he shares some suggestions for casting an adaptation of his latest YA novel, Desert Angel: When I learned about this blog I was surprised to realize I don't think about my characters as movie actors. I usually build them from an early quixotic impression and they grow more distinct as I write. I start with an overall person in mind --- fourteen year-old girl, spiky blond hair, wa

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J.H. Trumble's Don’t Let Me Go"

J.H. Trumble is a Texas native and graduate of Sam Houston State University.Here she shares some ideas for casting an adaptation of her debut novel, Don’t Let Me Go:Casting for Don’t Let Me Go has proven to be more difficult than writing the book! Believe me, I’d much rather write. I think everyone forms an image of a character in their minds. Movies really have to sell the casting to the people. Take Robert Pattinson as Edward. At first, I thought no, no, no, no, no. Halfway through the movie, though, I’d changed my mind. Robert Pattinson is the perfect Edward.So I’m going to cheat a little.

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Benjamin Buchholz's "One Hundred and One Nights"

Benjamin Buchholz served as a Civil Affairs Officer in Safwan, Iraq, from 2005 to 2006. His nonfiction book Private Soldiers was published by the Wisconsin Historical Society Press in 2007.Here he writes about the actors he'd like to see in an adaptation of One Hundred and One Nights, his first novel:I bet every author has this same recurring daydream or fantasy ... who stars in the movie production of their first novel. I certainly did (and do) think about this!But, because this story is set in Safwan, Iraq, I'm faced with a dilemma. Do I cast someone relatively unknown who fits the right

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D.C. Brod's "Getting Lucky"

Deborah (Deb) Brod has written fiction most of her life, but didn’t think she had a novel in her until after she graduated from Northern Illinois University with an M.A. in journalism.Here she shares some suggestions for casting an adaptation of her new novel, Getting Lucky: I would love to see Laura Linney play Robyn Guthrie, my slightly larcenous heroine. Although Linney doesn't physically resemble Robyn as I've imagined her, she's an amazing actress who can put a lot of layers into a character.I don't usually have an image of a character when I begin the book. Each becomes more and more

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Sabrina Benulis's "Archon"

Sabrina Benulis graduated with a master’s in writing popular fiction from Seton Hill University. She currently resides in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania with her husband, Mike, and her spoiled cockatiel, Caesar.Here she shares some insights into adapting Archon, her debut novel, for the big screen:Archon and its sequels in "The Books of Raziel" trilogy would make unbelievable movies. This is a pipe-dream for me, of course. Really, the odds of any novelist's books becoming a movie are quite slim, even if they're optioned, and then by gosh you'd better hope the adaptation is at least a

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Jennifer Frost's "Hedda Hopper’s Hollywood"

Jennifer Frost is senior lecturer in history at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and the author of “An Interracial Movement of the Poor”: Community Organizing and the New Left in the 1960s.Here she shares her preferences for the above-the-line talent for a cinematic adaptation of her recent book, Hedda Hopper’s Hollywood: Celebrity Gossip and American Conservatism:Hollywood gossip columnist Hedda Hopper was a powerhouse of Hollywood’s golden age, and people either loved the “duchess of dish” or hated this “gargoyle of gossip.” For 27 years and 32 million readers over the mid-20th cen

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Ali Brandon's "Double Booked for Death"

Ali Brandon is the pseudonym for Diane A.S. Stuckart, who is the critically acclaimed author of historical romance and short fiction, as well as the award-winning Leonardo da Vinci mystery series from Berkley Prime Crime. The first in Brandon’s new Black Cat Bookshop mystery series, Double Booked for Death, hit the shelves December 6, 2011.Here she writes about the actors she'd like to see in an adaptation of Double Booked for Death:Ah, yes, every writer’s secret dream…to have his or her book turned into a movie. And, in that most perfect world, we writers get to cast our own stories. (Of cou

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