Simon Lewis's "Border Run"

Simon Lewis studied Art at Goldmiths College in London, then worked as a travel writer in Asia. He researched the Rough Guides to China, Beijing, and Shanghai as well as writing for newspapers and magazines.

His first novel Go (1999), a travel thriller about backpackers, was written in a village in the Himalayas. His second novel, Bad Traffic (2008), is a crime thriller about people smugglers, featuring Chinese policeman Inspector Jian.

Here Lewis dreamcasts an adaptation of his latest novel, Border Run:

If Border Run was to be filmed, it would be a contained thriller - all the action takes place over a single day, in (pretty much) one location - the remote forest that lies on the border between Burma and China. As well as bringing to life some dramatic talky scenes, the actors would be required to do a lot of tricky physical work - jumping over waterfalls, fighting with knives, and hunting one another with homemade crossbows.

For my lead, naive young British backpacker Will, I would want Robert Sheehan. I was lucky enough to watch him play another part I wrote for him - that of a grieving pickpocket in the TV drama Dip - and I think he is a superb actor. He brings a mesmerising mix of angst and strength to the role. It helps that he's beautiful too, in a soulful way.

I think it is a challenging part: over the course of one day he has to turn from one of life's natural witnesses - rather self conscious, hiding behind his camera - into a ruthless hunter who must drop the trappings of civilisation and turn on his best friend, in order to do what he thinks is right.

For the second backpacker, Jake, I would cast Dominic Cooper - sportier and more extrovert, with more classical good looks. Something more of a jack- the-lad quality about him. Again, his role is a tough one: he has to be stripped of his conceited confidence and descend into paranoia and desperation.

The third character - the seedy middle aged smuggler who acts as their guide - is psychopathic, middle aged and American - so would have to be played by whoever the new Dennis Hopper is - perhaps Nicolas Cage. Certainly a character actor who can bring some intensity and danger to the part. As the guide, he runs rings around his young charges, being icy, manipulative and fast talking - and, ultimately, unhinged and pretty scary. For an actor, it's probably the best role; he gets a good death scene too...

Learn more about the book and author at Simon Lewis' website and blog.

The Page 69 Test: Bad Traffic.

The Page 69 Test: Border Run.

--Marshal Zeringue

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Esther Friesner's "Spirit's Princess"

Nebula Award winner Esther Friesner is the author of more than 30 novels and over 150 short stories, including the story "Thunderbolt" in Random House's Young Warriors anthology, which lead to the creation of Nobody's Princess and Nobody's Prize. She is also the editor of seven popular anthologies. Her works have been published around the world. Educated at Vassar College and Yale University, where she taught for a number of years, Friesner is also a poet, a playwright, and once wrote an advice column, "Ask Auntie Esther."

Here she shares some thoughts about adapting her latest novel, Spirit's Princess, for the big screen:

I can't remember a time when I didn't love to play the game of "Hollywood has just signed on the dotted line and they actually care enough about the author's feelings to let me cast the movie!" The name of the game is rather a stretch, but so are the chances of Hollywood ever giving an author that much say. In spite of that, I continue to dreamcast.

Now I have the opportunity to do so publicly for my latest novel, Spirit's Princess, even if it's just on the "What if. . .?" level. You'd think I'd be overjoyed.

I'm not. I'm overwhelmed.

Much as I'd love to dreamcast Spirit's Princess, here's the problem: It's set in 3rd century Japan. The heroine, Himiko, grew up to be the shaman-queen who united her people's warring tribes, brought peace, and was recognized as a worthy ally by the emperor of China. She's strong but vulnerable, complex, admirable, spiritual, a fighter, a healer, and...Japanese.

As are the rest of the characters in the book, might I add.

I cannot see casting this book with anyone but Japanese performers, but I also know precious little about who's who in Japanese cinema. How can I pick the right person to play Himiko, her haunted father, her shaman mentor Yama, her nemesis Ryu, her indomitable best friend Kaya, and everyone else when I am woefully unfamiliar with contemporary Japanese actors and actresses? I can look up their images online, but that won't tell me anything about their acting style or the full scope of their talent. The person who looks good for a part might not be the right person to play that part.

So I'm going to take a different tack and, instead of dreamcasting Spirit's Princess with live performers, I'll turn to the realm of animation. Not just any animation, of course. This is my dream and I like to dream big! So I'm going to close my eyes and imagine that by some miracle, this project draws the attention of Oscar winner Hayao Miyazaki, co-head of Studio Ghibli, the master whose gifts brought us so many wonderful films. If you're going to get someone else to cast your book when it's turned into a movie, get the best!

See you at the premiere.

Learn more about the book and author at the Princesses of Myth website and blog.

--Marshal Zeringue

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Ceri Radford's "A Surrey State of Affairs"

Ceri Radford grew up in Swansea, studied English literature and French at Cambridge and started her career with Reuters. She has since written about books, TV, culture, society, male strippers and many other things besides for publications including The Daily Telegraph, the Times Literary Supplement, and Red Magazine. She currently lives, confusingly, very close to Geneva, but in France.

Here Radford dreamcasts an adaptation of her first novel, A Surrey State of Affairs:

Constance Harding: My British heroine is a 53 year-old, biscuit-baking, church-bell-ringing, hopelessly deluded meddling mother. One actress springs immediately to mind: Meryl Streep. She would be perfect, not just for her manifest brilliance, but also because she has already shown herself equal to capturing Constance by playing both a mother-of-the-bride in the throes of wedding planning (in Mamma Mia!), and Margaret Thatcher.

Jeffrey Harding: Constance’s husband Jeffrey – “a man of few words and many possible meanings” – falls short of the romantic ideal, but is not irredeemable. I could just imagine Colin Firth, with the haughtiness of his unreformed Mr Darcy in Pride and Prejudice, and Mark Darcy in Bridget Jones’s Diary, playing Jeffrey as he opens his Financial Times across the dinner table like a giant peach windbreak.

Darcy: The above brings me to another central character: Constance’s Eclectus parrot, named Darcy. Alas, the talking parrot in Pirates of the Caribbean is the wrong species; while Blu the Macaw from Rio is made of pixels. The only solution is to hand-rear an infant Eclectus and train it rigorously: the role will require the bird to swoop at a police officer while Constance is holding her husband’s antique rifle concealed within a sports sock.

Natalia and Lydia: Constance’s maid Natalia and her twin sister could quite feasibly be played by The Cheeky Girls, Gabriela and Monica Irimia, who found fame, of a sort, with their 2002 single “Cheeky Song (Touch my Bum)”.

Sophie Harding: Since it’s fashionable to cast “real people” rather than actors, for the role of Constance’s truculent teenage daughter I would send my casting director to Topshop with a megaphone and a bag of freebies. The part would go to whoever trampled the greatest number of people in pursuit of a free pair of hotpants and packet of Milkyway Magic Stars.

Rupert Harding: I’d like James McAvoy, please. There is no particular correlation between him and Rupert, Constance’s long-suffering son, who stoically resists his mother’s attempts to find him a girlfriend on the internet, but if James McAvoy was in the film then I would get to meet him and swoon in an undignified fashion.

Visit Ceri Radford's website and like her Facebook page.

The Page 69 Test: A Surrey State of Affairs.

--Marshal Zeringue

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Tom Leveen's "Zero"

Tom Leveen is the author of Party and Zero (young adult contemporary, both with Random House). Zero was released on April 24, 2012.

Here he shares his preferences for the cast of an adaptation of Zero:

It took me a while to come up with a dream cast for Zero, but I think I've settled on one.

MIKE: The Basketball Diaries-era Leonardo DiCaprio. Perfect blend of smarm, charm, and intensity. He can pull off the skater cut, and slay women with his smoky gaze, amiright? I've been a nominal fan of his ever since Gilbert Grape, and the truth is, the guy's a hell of an actor. It wouldn't hurt ticket sales, that's all I'm sayin'.

MIRIAM: Non-pleather-wearing, post-Matrix trilogy Carrie-Anne Moss. I remember seeing her in a contemporary film after The Matrix and being utterly shocked at her appearance. Still beautiful, but worn and haggard for the role, and I think that's a perfect fit for Zero's put-upon and co-dependent mother.

RICHARD: Philip Seymour Hoffman. Is there any role this man can't do? I love his range, and I think he's can play the right mix of alcoholic charm and sudden brokenness needed for the nuances of Richard Walsh, the fall and redemption of someone who could be a great dad if he tried.

JENN: I went back and forth on this for a while, but ultimately, I'm going to go with Samantha Mathis circa Pump Up the Volume. One, because she's so damn cute in that; and two, she has the edge plus comic timing plus overwhelming energy needed to pull off Jenn's bouncy but wounded persona.

DEBORAH: Allison Janney (The West Wing, Drop Dead Gorgeous.) No question. I flirted with maybe a nineties Whoopi Goldberg, but Deborah has to end up being a bitch, even if it's off screen, and Janney is a superb actor with great range, who I think could really sell the art teacher's flightiness and passion for art, while still stabbing her pupil in the back. Plus, I'd just like to meet her.

And at last, our titular protagonist, ZERO: I really wish I could say AnnaSophia Robb (Bridge to Terabithia, Soul Surfer), who is awesome, but I think she belongs somewhere in my first novel, Party. So that's a heartbreaker. I ended up choosing Ellen Page here, first for her absolutely priceless comic timing, which is central for Zero, but also as an actor who I think can pull off the self-doubt and self-deprecation the character requires. She's probably aged just a bit too much for the role now, so I think I'd have to back her up to a post-Juno, pre-Inception look.

I didn’t have any actors in mind when I wrote the original draft back in 1993, unless you counted myself and my friends. I still saw that “cast” in my head while doing the endless rewrites and revisions over those nineteen years. I even have a series of photos with me and the guys who I envisioned in the band, and more than once had plans to film a scene from the book just for the hell of it.

I also find it amusing, though, how the characters grow and evolve over the course of years, starting off looking and even acting like certain people on page one of draft one, then by the last page of the last draft, they’ve completely transformed. I’m thrilled to finally get her out on the shelves after so long, but I will always wonder who else Zero may have become had we spent more time together.

Watch the trailer for Zero, and learn more about the book and author at Tom Leveen's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

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Kate Quinn's "Empress of the Seven Hills"

Kate Quinn is a native of southern California. She attended Boston University, where she earned a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Classical Voice. A lifelong history buff, she first got hooked on ancient Rome while watching I, Claudius at the age of seven. She wrote her first book during her freshman year in college, retreating from a Boston winter into ancient Rome, and it was later published as Mistress of Rome. A prequel followed, titled Daughters of Rome, and then a sequel--the newly released Empress of the Seven Hills--written while her husband was deployed to the Middle East.

Here Quinn shares some ideas for casting an adaptation of Empress of the Seven Hills:

A question like this is pure wish fulfillment for authors – especially historical fiction authors, who don't have much chance of getting their books made into movies. It doesn't cost me anything to write about all those Colosseum fights and battles between endless legions and Roman forums with crowds of thousands, but such movies are prohibitively expensive to make, so I doubt HBO will be burning up my phone line anytime soon with offers to turn Empress of the Seven Hills into a star-studded 7-season miniseries. But it's fun to dream, so here's my ideal cast.

Vix: oddly enough, my brash and abrasive soldier hero is the hardest to cast. For one thing, he starts the book out as a swaggering boy of nineteen, and ends as a capable war hero of thirty-three. I'll go with Chris Hemsworth – his action flick Thor was fairly forgettable, but he showed humor, charisma, and swagger just like Vix, and in Snow White and the Huntsman he proved he could swing a sword with serious heft.

Sabina: Emma Watson would be perfect for my intelligent, reticent, and just-a-bit-mysterious heroine. Playing a senator's daughter with a yen for adventure, Ms. Watson would get to dress up and dine with emperors, or go grunge to hunker down with legionaries, all with equal aplomb. Plus rock a pixie cut.

Hadrian: for Sabina's husband and the book's villain, I'll pick Wentworth Miller. His stint in Prison Break showed him as charming and intelligent, his good looks hiding a serpentine mind and a cool, detached ruthlessness – perfect for Hadrian.

Titus: Vix's unlikely best friend is a shy over-educated patrician boy who grows into confident man-to-be-reckoned-with, and I can think of no one better than Zach Gilford. As the teenage quarterback in Friday Night Lights he showed both sweetness and steel beneath a gawky inarticulate surface.

Emperor Trajan: the confident, charismatic man's-man emperor of Rome, beloved by all and especially by Vix who is his protege. Put Harrison Ford in a breastplate, and we're done.

Empress Plotina: with a name like that, you know Trajan's wife will be a scheming villainness. Michelle Forbes would be perfect; handsome but cold.

Mirah: Vix's fiery Jewish wife with the red hair? Emma Stone.

Senator Marcus Norbanus: Gabriel Byrne would be perfect for Sabina's intellectual senator father.

Faustina: Sabina's little sister, who grows up into a beauty and sets her sights on the shy Titus for a future husband. Jessica Brown Findlay plays an identical type in Downton Abbey as an earl's spirited rebel daughter who uses beauty, charm, wit, and everything else in her arsenal to make sure she gets her own way. Just like Faustina.

Now that we have a cast, can I write the screenplay?

Learn more about Empress of the Seven Hills and its author at Kate Quinn's website and blog.

Writers Read: Kate Quinn.

Read--Coffee with a Canine: Kate Quinn and Caesar.

--Marshal Zeringue

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Mariah Fredericks's "The Girl in the Park"

Mariah Fredericks is the author of the bestselling novel The True Meaning of Cleavage, which Meg Cabot called "laugh-out-loud funny and way twisted!" She is also the author of Head Games, Crunch Time, and the In the Cards series.

Here she dreamcasts an adaptation of her new novel, The Girl in the Park:

I'm a frustrated casting director. I love picking actors for roles in books or thinking about who should play what historical figure. (Why has no one cast Tommy Lee Jones as LBJ—why, why?) I don't generally imagine real actors playing the parts in my books. But once I started researching, it was huge fun to think about what certain performers would bring to the roles. If I'm going for box office, Robert Pattinson could make a terrific Nico, as he is so skilled at playing attractive but deadly. And actually, Kristen Stewart could play Rain. Not only is she a great actress, she has a shyness and discomfort with public speaking that make her right for the part. I'd also love to see Mia Wasikowska play Rain, she does smart and awkward so well. Or Saoirse Ronan, who was knockout in Hanna and The Lovely Bones.

Mark Salling is another thought for Nico. He's got the bad boy thing down. Blake Lively could play regal, intimidating Sasha in her sleep; I'd love to see Yaya DaCosta in the part. She did play a bona fide adult in The Kids Are All Right, but I still think she'd be great as that lofty, superior girl whose friendship and approval you yearned for at school. When I thought of Wendy, my mind went immediately to Amanda Seyfried. She doesn't physically match the description of Wendy. But her drifty blond locks and huge eyes evoke both likability and the capacity to make really bad decisions. She would be vivid enough for a character who appears only in flashbacks. You would care who killed Amanda Seyfried.

Learn more about the book and author at Mariah Fredericks's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

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Kristan Higgins's "Somebody to Love"

Kristan Higgins is a New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author and two-time winner of the Romance Writers of America RITA Award.

Here she shares some suggestions about the above-the-line talent for an adaptation of her latest novel, Somebody to Love:

Parker Welles belongs to the 1%—she lives off the interest from her trust fund, has never had to check a price tag in her life and lives in a Rhode Island mansion with 29 bathrooms. That is, until her father informs her that he’s drained her bank account to cover an insider trading scheme. She’s broke, unemployed, needs to move, and asap. She only has one thing left: a tiny, battered house she’s never seen on the remote northern coast of Maine. She has the summer to flip it and make a nest egg before her son starts kindergarten. The last person whose help she wants is Thing One, better known as James Cahill, her father’s attorney and the son he never had. James, meanwhile, has spent much of his life trying to make amends for a childhood accident that ruined his family. Feeling in large part responsible for Parker’s ruined finances, he’s determined to help her in any way he can, whether she wants him there or not.

Parker’s a very intelligent, capable woman, but the new developments in her life have left her reeling. I think Charlize Theron would make an excellent Parker—she’s one of those mercurial actors who can convey six emotions at once. James Franco might make a great Thing One, in that he has both a regal sense about him as well as a fantastic comedic sense. Other key characters are Lavinia, Parker’s crusty, earthy cousin—in a dream world, I’d have Dame Judi Dench play her. Alec Baldwin would perfect as Harry, Parker’s edgy, corrupt father. And because it’s on my bucket list to meet her, I’d cast Meryl Streep as Althea, Parker’s mom and the serial trophy wife to increasingly elderly husbands.

For director, Nancy Meyers has directed two romantic comedies that I’ve loved—It’s Complicated and What Women Want, both of which had humor and heart. So as long as we’re wish-listing, why not?

Learn more about the book and author at Kristan Higgins's website and blog.

--Marshal Zeringue

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