Chana Porter is a playwright, teacher, MacDowell Colony fellow, and co-founder of The Octavia Project, a STEM and fiction-writing program for girls and gender non-conforming youth from underserved communities. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.Here Porter dreamcasts an adaptation of The Seep, her debut novel:
In The Seep, Trina Goldberg-Oneka is a fifty-year-old trans woman whose life is irreversibly altered in the wake of a gentle—but nonetheless world-changing—invasion by an alien entity called The Seep. Through The Seep, everything is connected. Capitalism falls, hierarchies and barriers are broken down; if something can be imagined, it is possible.Visit Chana Porter's website.
Trina and her wife, Deeba, live blissfully under The Seep’s utopian influence—until Deeba begins to imagine what it might be like to be reborn as a baby, which will give her the chance at an even better life. Using Seeptech to make this dream a reality, Deeba moves on to a new existence, leaving Trina devastated.
Heartbroken and deep into an alcoholic binge, Trina follows a lost boy she encounters, embarking on an unexpected quest. In her attempt to save him from The Seep, she will confront not only one of its most avid devotees, but the terrifying void that Deeba has left behind. A strange new elegy of love and loss, The Seep explores grief, alienation, and the ache of moving on.
Trina—Shakina Nayfack
You probably know Shakina from the Transparent series finale or as Lola in Difficult People. I’m very lucky to have Shakina reading the audiobook of The Seep. I think she’d make a wonderful Trina for the movie.
Deeba— Mindy Kaling
I would love to see Mindy with a shaved head, not to mention married to another woman. I bet Mindy is fun at a dinner party. She’d fit in.
Horizon Line— Jaden Smith
Jaden is pitch perfect as rockstar Horizon Line, a devotee of The Seep who has a dark secret.
YD— Lily Tomlin
Lily Tomlin as a Yiddish speaking tough butch restauranteur? Yes please.
Pina the Bear— Natasha Lyonne
Some of my readers have remarked that Pina, the bear with ascended consciousness, is their favorite character. Lately I’ve been imagining Pina as Natasha Lyonne. Small but tough, funny in the driest way possible.
The Boy—Roshon Fegan
As Trina’s life collapses around her, she becomes obsessed with protecting a boy she’s never met from Horizon Line. In the book the boy is supposed to be around 18. I'm thinking of Roshon from 2011. What a cutie!
--Marshal Zeringue