Ted Kosmatka's "The Games"

Ted Kosmatka was born and raised in northwest Indiana and spent more than a decade working in various laboratories there before moving to the Pacific Northwest. His short fiction has been nominated for both the Nebula Award and the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award. He now works in the videogame industry where he’s a full-time writer at Valve, home of Half-Life, Portal and Dota 2.Here he shares some casting ideas for a big screen adaptation of The Games, his first novel:I'm a huge movie buff so this is the kind of question that I can really sink my teeth into. The movie in my

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Aimee Phan's "The Reeducation of Cherry Truong"

Aimee Phan grew up in Orange County, California, and now teaches in the MFA Writing Program and Writing and Literature Program at California College of the Arts. A 2010 National Endowment of the Arts Creative Writing Fellow, Aimee received her MFA from the Iowa Writer's Workshop, where she won a Maytag Fellowship. Her first book, We Should Never Meet, was named a Notable Book by the Kiryama Prize in fiction and a finalist for the 2005 Asian American Literary Awards. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, USA Today, and The Oregonian among others.Here she shares her vision for

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Saladin Ahmed's "Throne of The Crescent Moon"

Saladin Ahmed was born in Detroit and raised in a working-class, Arab American enclave in Dearborn, Michigan.He holds a BA in American Culture from the University of Michigan, an MFA in Creative Writing from Brooklyn College, and an MA in English from Rutgers. His poetry has received several fellowships, and he has taught writing at universities and colleges for over ten years.His short stories have been nominated for the Nebula and Campbell awards, and have appeared in Year’s Best Fantasy and numerous other magazines, anthologies, and podcasts, as well as being translated into five fo

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John Welshman's "Titanic: The Last Night of a Small Town"

John Welshman is the author of Titanic: The Last Night of a Small Town (Oxford University Press, 2012).Here he shares some casting ideas for a cinematic adaptation of the book:With the help of our teenage son, I had a lot of fun with this. The book focuses on 12 people whose stories are woven into the narrative. They have been chosen to represent, as far as possible, the idea of the Titanic as being like a ‘small town’. So there are passengers and crew members; children as well as adults; women as well as men; rich and poor; and people from Britain, the United States, South Africa; Finland

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Larry D. Sweazy's "The Devil's Bones"

Larry D. Sweazy's Josiah Wolfe, Texas Ranger western novels include The Rattlesnake Season, The Scorpion Trail, The Badger's Revenge, and The Cougar's Prey.Here Sweazy shares some suggestions for casting an adaptation of The Devil's Bones, his first mystery novel:Casting this book would be interesting. It’s a small town murder mystery that jumps back in forth in time from the present to nineteen years in the past. The narrative follows two characters, Jordan McManus, a young deputy implicated in a murder investigation, and Tito Cordova, an abducted half-white, half-Mexican, trying to f

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Cara Black's "Murder at the Lanterne Rouge"

Cara Black is the author of the best-selling Aimée Leduc series. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and son and visits Paris frequently.Her new novel, Murder at the Lanterne Rouge, is the 12th book in the Aimee Leduc Series.Here Black shares her choice for one of the co-stars of an adaptation of the book:I'm not sure who I'd like to play Aimée Leduc because there are so many stickthin, big-eyed, androgynous French actresses it would be hard to chose. But I definitely see the late, great actor Philippe Noiret, when I write the character of Morbier, Aimée's godfather and Commissaire.

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Madeline Miller's "The Song of Achilles"

Madeline Miller grew up in Philadelphia, has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Latin and Ancient Greek from Brown University, and has been teaching both languages for the past nine years. She has also studied at the Yale School of Drama, specializing in adapting classical tales for a modern audience. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Here Miller dreamcasts an adaptation of The Song of Achilles, her first novel:The Song of Achilles is a retelling of the life of Achilles from the point of view of his lover and best friend Patroclus. The novel follows the two from boyhood through the even

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Jim DeFelice’s "The Helios Conspiracy"

Jim DeFelice’s new book, The Helios Conspiracy, received a starred review from Kirkus, who called it a “complete success with its appealing investigator, rapid-fire dialogue and convincing storytelling.”He is the co-author of American Sniper, the New York Times number one best-seller.Here the author explains how he and his wife are and have always been in complete accord about the actor to play the lead in a big-screen adaptation of The Helios Conspiracy:One Saturday night not too long ago, I sat down to watch a movie at home with Debra, my (unpaid) editorial advisor, occasional editor, and w

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Christopher Hebert's "The Boiling Season"

Christopher Hebert graduated from Antioch College, where he also worked at the Antioch Review. He has spent time in Guatemala, taught in Mexico, and worked as a research assistant to the author Susan Cheever. He earned an MFA in creative writing from the University of Michigan and was awarded its prestigious Hopwood Award for Fiction. He lives in Knoxville, Tennessee, with his son and wife, the novelist Margaret Lazarus Dean.Here Hebert shares some ideas for the lead actors in an adaptation of his new novel, The Boiling Season:My favorite books and movies tend to be heavily atm

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Tobias Buckell's "Arctic Rising"

Tobias S. Buckell is the author of Halo: The Cole Protocol, Sly Mongoose, Ragamuffin, Crystal Rain, and the newly released Arctic Rising. His books have been finalists for the Nebula Award, the Prometheus Award, and the Romantic Times Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. He hails from the Caribbean, where as a child he lived on boats in Grenada and the British and U.S. Virgin Islands. When he was a teenager, his family moved to Ohio after a series of hurricanes destroyed the boat they were living on, and he attended Bluffton University in Bluffton, Ohio, where he still lives toda

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Ellen Ullman's "By Blood"

Ellen Ullman is the author of a novel, The Bug, a New York Times Notable Book and runner-up for the PEN/Hemingway Award, and the cult classic memoir Close to the Machine, based on her years as a rare female computer programmer in the early years of the personal computer era.Here she explains why she won't dreamcast her new novel, By Blood:Gabriel García Márquez refused offers for a film based on One Hundred Years of Solitude. He said that a reader, after seeing the movie, would never again be able to see Colonel Aureliano Buendía as anyone but the actor. I have never forgotten that, bec

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Catherine McKenzie's "Spin"

Catherine McKenzie was born and raised in Montreal, Canada. A graduate of McGill University and McGill Law School, McKenzie practices law in Montreal. Her novels Spin and Arranged are International Bestsellers. They, along with her third novel, Forgotten, will all be published in the US by William Morrow in 2012.Here are her thoughts on her part in casting an adaptation of Spin: Spin has recently been optioned for film so this question comes up a lot. The funny thing is – and maybe this is antithetical to your question – I have a hard time imagining who should play the roles in the

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Zoë Sharp's "Fifth Victim"

Zoë Sharp wrote her first novel when she was fifteen, and created the no-nonsense Charlie Fox after receiving death-threat letters as a photojournalist. Her work has been nominated for the Edgar, Anthony, Barry (twice), Benjamin Franklin, and Macavity Awards in the United States, as well as the CWA Short Story Dagger. Charlie Fox was optioned for TV by Twentieth Century Fox and one of Sharp’s short stories was made into a short film.Here she dreamcasts an adaptation of the Charlie Fox series:I think everybody who writes their main character in first person has the problem of how best to descr

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Caitlin R. Kiernan's "The Drowning Girl"

Caitlin R. Kiernan's novels include Silk, Threshold, Low Red Moon, Murder of Angels, Daughter of Hounds, and The Red Tree. Her award-winning short fiction has been collected in six volumes, including Tales of Pain and Wonder; To Charles Fort, With Love; Alabaster; and A is for Alien. She has also published two volumes of erotica, Frog Toes and Tentacles and Tales from the Woeful Platypus.Here she names some possible directors and actors for a big screen adaptation of her new novel, The Drowning Girl: A Memoir:This is a game I always play with myself, as I'm writing a book and afterwards. But

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Jacqueline E. Luckett's "Passing Love"

Jacqueline E. Luckett worked in sales for Xerox for twenty years. During that time she married, raised a family, and took creative writing classes where she reignited her love of writing.In 2004, she formed the Finish Party (featured in O Magazine, October 2007) along with seven other women writers-of-color. She calls these outstanding women her mentors and advisors, her friends and the toughest (and most loving) readers around.Here Luckett shares some ideas for the lead actors in an adaptation of her new novel, Passing Love:Passing Love: The Movie! If it could happen to other authors,

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