Anita Hughes's "Market Street"

Anita Hughes was born in Sydney, Australia and had a charmed childhood that included petting koala bears, riding the waves on Bondi Beach, and putting an occasional shrimp on the barbie. Her writing career began at the age of eight, when she won a national writing contest in The Australian newspaper, and was named "One of Australia's Next Best Writers." (She still has the newspaper clipping.)

She received a B.A. in English Literature with a minor in Creative Writing from Bard College, and attended UC Berkeley's Masters in Creative Writing program.

Monarch Beach is Hughes's first novel.

Here the author dreamcasts an adaptation of her recently released second novel, Market Street:

I write very visually - I can see characters and locations when I write. Market Street is set in San Francisco. We all know San Francisco makes a wonderful backdrop for movies - Vertigo, Nine Months, Escape From Alcatraz, Milk. There is an almost endless list of great films that have been shot in San Francisco. So that would be the easiest thing to cast (and I see the location as a character itself).

The main character in Market Street is Cassie Blake - the young wife of a UC Berkeley Ethics professor who must choose between her crumbling marriage and opening a food emporium in Fenton's, her mother's high end department store. Cassie is about thirty - a bright, spunky brunette who has to navigate unfamiliar waters when she discovers her husband has been seduced by a student. I have been a huge fan of Rachel Bilson ever since I discovered her on the television series The O.C. years ago. I think it's time she made the leap to movies and she'd be excellent as Cassie!

One of my favorite characters I've ever written is Alexis, Cassie's best friend. Alexis is beautiful, wealthy but somehow very vulnerable - and she is funny, I love humor in books. Gwyneth Paltrow would make a perfect Alexis. She wears clothes fabulously and she has can portray a kind of fragility while making you laugh.

I'm not even going to try to cast the male leads - Aidan, Cassie's husband or James, the handsome architect who comes into her life. I think every female reader has her own fantasy men - so I'll leave that to their imagination!

Learn more about the book and author at Anita Hughes's website.

Writers Read: Anita Hughes (July 2012).

--Marshal Zeringue