Zoë Marriott's "Shadows on the Moon"

Zoë Marriott lives in a little house in a town by the sea, with two rescued cats, a springer/cocker spaniel known as The Devil Hound, and over 10,000 books. Her first YA novel -The Swan Kingdom, a fairytale retelling based on Hans Christian Andersen's 'Wild Swans' - was written when she was only twenty one, and published to wide critical acclaim when she was twenty-four. She has since had two more award-winning young adult fantasies published, and has five further novels scheduled for publication in the next four years.

Here she dreamcasts an adaptation of her new novel, Shadows on the Moon:

Shadows on the Moon is hard to cast because it is set in Tsuki no Hikari no Kuni, or The Moonlit Lands - a fairytale version of Japan. All the main cast are Asian, and the male romantic lead is black. Sadly, even today you don't often see young Asian or black romantic leads in Hollywood! But I would still love to see a film of this book. The lush beauty of Japan isn't celebrated on film nearly as often as it should be, and my heart would thrill to see the imaginary world I created spring to life on screen.

In order to cast Suzume - the sheltered child of a poet who transforms first into Rin, a humble, fear-stricken drudge, and then Yue, a supernaturally beautiful courtesan who is desperate to avenge the death of her family - I need to look abroad. The Japanese actress who most brings Suzume to mind is Horikita Maki. She's young and beautiful, but her face has a changeable, vulnerable quality which I think could portray my main character's broken soul perfectly.

A young British actor who might work as Otieno, the foreigner who breaks through Suzume's practised illusions with his warmth, humour and devotion is John Boyega. He impressed me very much in the British low budget horror flick Attack the Block. Even though he was playing quite a scary character - an apparently morally bankrupt inner city thug - at the end of the film, when he risks sacrificing his life to save the other inhabitants of his tower block, he truly brought tears to my eyes. The fact that he's physically stunning also helps! I think he would be wonderful, especially if he would grow his hair out into the required dreadlocks...

Learn more about the book and author at Zoë Marriott's website and blog.

Writers Read: Zoë Marriott.

--Marshal Zeringue

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Richard Harland's "Liberator"

Richard Harland is the author of many fantasy, horror, and science fiction novels for young readers, including Worldshaker, Liberator, the Eddon and Vail series, the Heaven and Earth Trilogy, and the Wolf Kingdom quartet, which won the Aurealis Award. He lives in Australia.

Here Harland shares his conviction about the right director for an adaptation of Liberator, as well as some suggestions for the principal cast:

For the film of Liberator, the one thing I’m definite on is my director. David Fincher! Sorry, Hollywood, I just won’t accept anyone else. When Se7en came out, it blew my mind away, and I’ve admired almost everything Fincher has directed since: The Game, Fight Club, Panic Room, Zodiac, The Social Network, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. That’s an awesome list by any count! And Fincher has exactly the right talents for my brand of steampunk fantasy. I need his skill with action (for some huge action scenes in Liberator); I need his use of sound to create ominous atmospheres (for all the dark, brooding scenes); and I need his ability to maximise shock and surprise (for many moments of jaw-dropping revelation). Most of all, I need his visual imagination. Se7en blew me away because it used colour effects I’d never seen before in a movie: dark, glinting, metallic colours, steel and bronze and copper. Other directors have followed the same path since, but there’s still no one who can do it better than Fincher. His visual imagination is just crying out for the steampunk industrial settings of Liberator.

Seriously, I reckon steampunk is a gift to any movie director. So much amazing imagery: gaunt machines, smoke and steam, fire and sparks—and in the case of Liberator and its predecessor, Worldshaker, sheer vast scale. As in, mobile juggernauts three miles long! Think what Martin Scorsese did with steampunk imagery in Hugo … and Scorsese isn’t even an obvious steampunk director. Whereas steampunk and David Fincher are a marriage made in Heaven. I suspect he must’ve worked that out for himself, because I see his next movie is his vision of Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. Can’t wait!

(Memo to David: when you’ve proved yourself on gigantic under-the-sea vessels, try moving on to even bigger over-the-land vessels!)

Actors for Liberator are harder to pick. I visualize my characters very strongly—that’s one of my best ways of getting a handle on them. But my visualizations come from real people or composites of real people. When I try to think of actors, I start thinking in terms of roles in previous movies … for example, I think of Jennifer Lawrence for Riff, only because Riff has a lot in common with Katniss in The Hunger Games. But if I’m serious about this, I have to think of potential roles not past roles, and focus on faces and body language.

Okay. Steve Buscemi could do a great Mr Gibber, the crazy schoolteacher with the rubbery lips. And Bill Nighy fits the bill for Col’s permanently depressed father, Orris Porpentine.

For Col himself, I think someone like Ewan McGregor. A bit earnest, a bit awkward, yet stubborn and determined … and he’ll need a baffled, thwarted look when Riff breaks it off with him. Yes, Ewan could fill that spot.

Lye needs to be beautiful, but in a cold sort of way. She’s also a fanatic, and her crucial feature is her piercing eyes. The most piercing eyes I know belong to Saoirse Ronan—not the biggest name in the business, but she was in Atonement, The Lovely Bones and The Way Back. She’d need a change of hair colour to black.

As for Riff, my third major character, I give up on actors. I can’t go past this image [above left] I found –

That’s what the Riff in my mind looks like!

Learn more about the book and author at Richard Harland's website.

Writers Read: Richard Harland.

--Marshal Zeringue

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J.T. Ellison's "A Deeper Darkness"

J.T. Ellison is the international award-winning author of eight critically acclaimed novels and multiple short stories.

Here she shares some ideas for adapting her new novel A Deeper Darkness, the first featuring medical examiner Samantha Owens, for the cinema:

I’ve never started a book with a preconception of the actors who may play the parts in mind, but that wasn’t the case for A Deeper Darkness. I picked the actors before I wrote the story, mostly because it’s a new series for me, with lots of new characters, and I wanted the visuals for the main characters so I could more easily identify with them in the story. I took to Pinterest to build a board of the novel, complete with important images, and even more importantly, the cast. It’s an all-star, blockbuster group, but these were the people I was imagining as I wrote the story.

Dr. Samantha Owens – Natalie Portman

Major Edward Donovan – Ewan McGregor

Sergeant Alexander (Xander) Whitfield – Josh Hartnett

Detective Darren Fletcher – Robert Downey, Jr.

Eleanor Donovan – Helen Mirren

Susan Donovan – Michelle Williams

If anyone wants to send a book their way, let me know!

Learn more about the book and author at J.T. Ellison's website and blog.

The Page 69 Test: A Deeper Darkness.

Writers Read: J.T. Ellison.

--Marshal Zeringue

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Meg Donohue's "How to Eat a Cupcake"

Meg Donohue has an MFA from Columbia University and a BA from Dartmouth College. Born and raised in Philadelphia, she now lives in San Francisco with her husband, daughters, dog, and a weakness for salted caramel cupcakes.

Here she dreamcasts an adaptation of How to Eat a Cupcake, her first novel:

It would be so fun to see How to Eat a Cupcake on the big--or little!--screen. I think America Ferrera would be a great Annie Quintana—she’s Latina, is winsomely feisty, and can be very funny. I think January Jones does a fantastic job playing an ice princess on Mad Men and she is a classic, Grace Kelly beauty like Julia St. Clair. I also think America Ferrara and January Jones seem like such an odd pairing that they could have really interesting chemistry, just as Annie and Julia do. The strangeness of seeing them share the screen could make for an exciting film. I’d be first in line!

I shared a slew of other casting ideas on How to Eat a Cupcake's Pinterest board.

Learn more about the book and author at Meg Donohue's website and blog.

The Page 69 Test: How to Eat a Cupcake.

Writers Read: Meg Donohue.

--Marshal Zeringue

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Joseph Olshan's "Cloudland"

Joseph Olshan is the award-winning author of ten novels including Nightswimmer and The Conversion. He spends most of the year in Vermont.

Here he shares his preferences for the lead in an adaptation of his latest novel, Cloudland:

I feel lucky to have had at least one of my books made into a movie (Clara's Heart that starred Whoopi Goldberg) and perhaps less lucky to have had the story-line of another book stolen by a Hollywood studio and made into a television movie that was so bad I couldn't bring myself to start a legal proceeding. As Cloudland makes the rounds of the movie studios, I am imagining it as a film.

The casting of the main character, Catherine Winslow, is the most crucial because she is the one who will carry the film. Catherine is in her early forties, a seasoned yet disillusioned journalist who has given up her high-powered career to live in rural Vermont and write a household hints column. She is a highly intellectual yet damaged soul who reads voraciously and who dares to have an affair with a former student 15 years her junior. Because Kate Winslet chose one of my earlier novels (The Waterline) as one of her three favorite books of all time, I obviously give her the first right of refusal for the role. I think it would be a perfect vehicle for this actress who would have no trouble playing a brainy, quirky and very attractive sleuth who discovers the frozen body of a woman; but should she turn the role down, I have two alternates.

The first would be Laura Linney who is a very close friend of Kate Winslett and who is certainly an intellectual in comparison to many actors in her league. Laura's father is the writer Romulus Linney, so I have no doubt she grew up in a household where books were read and discussed.

If Laura turns the role down, then I'd go to Patricia Clarkson whom I saw at the Opera the other night and who looked absolutely gorgeous in a black velvet dress. Patricia is a bit older than the character in the novel, but she looks fantastic. I think Clarkson would bring a great deal of personal insight to my heroine, the brilliant, disillusioned and cynical Catherine.

Learn more about the book and author at Joseph Olshan's website.

The Page 69 Test: Cloudland.

Writers Read: Joseph Olshan.

--Marshal Zeringue

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Tupelo Hassman’s "girlchild"

Tupelo Hassman graduated from Columbia's MFA program. Her writing has been published in Paper Street Press, The Portland Review Literary Journal, Tantalum, We Still Like, ZYZZYVA, and by 100WordStory.org and FiveChapters.com. Hassman is a contributing author to Heliography, Invisible City Audio Tours' first tour and is curating its fourth tour, The Landmark Revelation Society. She kept a video journal of girlchild's book tour for the short documentary Hardbound: A Novel's Life on the Road.

Here she shares some ideas for adapting her debut novel, girlchild, for the big screen:

Imagining girlchild as a film has been on my mind since girlchild was a zygote, when she was just about thirty pages, maybe eight of them any good, and I was still an undergrad at the community college where I now teach. Complete hubris, right? The book was still a twinkle in my eye but I was able to imagine its film version! This confidence is all thanks to my first Creative Writing prof, Jim Krusoe. Jim is the one who introduced me to filmmaker Michael Hacker, and so it began.

Michael was looking for stories to adapt for the big screen and I have no idea what I was looking for but over the ten years since we met, a novel grew where there was none, as did one of my greatest friendships. Michael has been there through the bad things that can happen in a decade: the death of my father, the brain injury suffered by a dear brother, innumerable breakups that are pretty specks in the past now but were so very important at the time, and, for each of us, the heart death of losing a beloved dog. We’ve been friends through the good too: my acceptance to USC as a first-generation college student, then to Columbia, Michael’s marriage to the world’s most beautiful bride, my engagement to the man who has made me believe in the future, and the publication of girlchild.

Michael will be the one to adapt girlchild for the big screen. The script he’s written is a gorgeous creation, at once perfectly like and unlike the novel he’s watched grow almost from nothing, “grow straight toward the sky as if soil were only a myth,” as Rory Dawn, girlchild’s protagonist says of plants that have taken root in the metal graveyard of the Calle, the trailer park where she lives. Michael’s pushed me about plot points, we’ve argued about chronology, he’s listened to every concern, in short: I don’t know if there would be this girlchild without Michael.

And bonus: Michael Hacker is a brilliant independent filmmaker.

Over the years I’ve dreamed of my favorite actors to fill the roles in the story of Rory Dawn’s life (even though I’ve never been able to cast a Rory Dawn, even in my imagination): Juliette Lewis for Rory’s mom, Josie, Holly Hunter for Rory’s grandma (we’d have to age her, but it would be so worth it), Tina Fey as Rory’s casserole-toting friend, Pigeon, Jeremy Davies as her brother, Ronald, and thinking of Josh Brolin as The Hardware Man gives me a perfect sad chill. I haven’t had to worry about filling the role of filmmaker, though, because the future of my girlchild has long been in hands I trust.

Here’s a quintessential Michael moment: When I left Los Angeles for grad school in New York, Michael and I were having goodbye coffee at a sidewalk café in Los Feliz. I handed him the self-addressed stamped postcard I’d brought as my I’m-going-away gift and he took out a pen, wrote on the postcard “Come back!” and ran right across the street to drop it in a blue postal bin. Message received. girlchild and I aren’t going anywhere.

Learn more about the book and author at Tupelo Hassman's website.

The Page 69 Test: girlchild.

--Marshal Zeringue

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Kathy Hepinstall's "Blue Asylum"

Kathy Hepinstall is the author of The House of Gentle Men (a Los Angeles Times bestseller), The Absence of Nectar (a national bestseller), and The Prince of Lost Places. She is an award-winning creative director and advertising writer, whose clients have included top brands in American business.

Here she dreamcasts an adaptation of her new novel, Blue Asylum:

When casting Blue Asylum I'd have to look for some actors and actresses with a bit of an edge. Some thoughts:

Dr. Cowell: The pompous and yet dissatisfied and restless psychiatrist of the insane asylum Stanley Tucci could capture both his arrogance and vulnerability.

Iris: The main character. A slave-holder's wife wrongfully sent to the asylum. It seems like this is a role for an actress with a classic, "old-fashioned" kind of look to her. Someone with dignity, a ferociousness under the surface and a heart. It would be tough to find the right actress, because Iris is only in her mid twenties in the book. I think of some of Hitchcock's blondes. Someone modern might be Natalie Portman? I don't know if I've ever seen her in a movie, so I'm grasping at straws.

Wendell: Dr. Cowell's disaffected twelve year old son. Well, he's just a kid. He's vulnerable like his dad, but he's also a boy. A sweaty, sensitive, lamb-and-lunatic loving boy. Maybe a young Macaulay Culkin, like his role in My Girl. Or the kid from About a Boy.

Mary: Dr. Cowell's mercurial, money-spending, slightly hysterical wife. A younger Kathy Bates comes to mind immediately.

Ambrose: He's got a haunted, but still handsome look. The kind of man a woman wants to marry and cure. Going to reach back to Montgomery Clift.

Visit Kathy Hepinstall's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

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