Stephanie Booth's "Libby Lost and Found"

Stephanie Booth has an M.A. in English from the University of New Mexico and an MFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College. Her work has appeared in Cosmopolitan, Real Simple, O, Marie Claire, The Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times. Booth has been a contributing editor at Teen People and an advice columnist for Teen, and she has helped with casting for MTV’s award-winning documentary series, True Life.

Her new novel is Libby Lost and Found.

Here Booth shares some ideas for casting an adaptation of her novel:

Forty-year-old Libby Weeks writes the best-selling fantasy series in the world, The Falling Children. (Imagine the popularity of Harry Potter, then dial it up a million.) But before she can finish the last book in the series, which fans across the globe are impatiently waiting to be published, Libby learns that she has early-onset dementia. Desperate to save the characters she loves so much, Libby reaches out to her biggest fan, an 11-year-old girl named Peanut Bixton, to help her finish the very last book.

I did not have any actors in my head while I was writing this, so it’s harder than I thought it would be to answer this question!

Peanut should probably be played by an earnest kid who begged her parents to go to the audition, they said, “No, you’re not missing school for this,” and she sneaked out and went anyway. I also expect that she gave the casting director a few notes about their line reads on the way out.

Libby is quiet and typically prefers to be alone, but she has an exhilarating inner life which she goes to great lengths to hide from others. What if this is a role for Alexis Bledel who does internal angst so well? Plus, everyone knows Rory Gilmore loves a good book and is an excellent writer.

Jessie, Peanut’s overprotective, pugnacious 20-something sister, might be played by Shailene Woodley, while their father, Dr. Bixton, would require an actor who’s folksy, likable, but also able assert an impatient authority. JK Simmons? John Goodman?

I could see Anthony Mackie playing the ambitious, charming, but not totally trustworthy journalist, Glenn, who is determined to figure out who’s writing the Falling Children books. And for Buzz, Peanut’s brother who plays a pivotal role in the book, the role description might read, “Handsome in a sloppy slacker way. Must have the right ratio of surly misanthropy and kindness, and be able to talk clearly with their mouth full of candy.”

Visit Stephanie Booth's website.

Q&A with Stephanie Booth.

--Marshal Zeringue

Sung J. Woo's "Lines"

Sung J. Woo's short stories and essays have appeared in The New York Times, PEN/Guernica, and Vox. He has written five novels, Lines (2024), Deep Roots (2023), Skin Deep (2020), Love Love (2015), and Everything Asian (2009), which won the 2010 Asian Pacific American Librarians Association Literature Award. In 2022, his Modern Love essay from The New York Times was adapted by Amazon Studios for episodic television. A graduate of Cornell University with an MFA from New York University, he lives in Washington, New Jersey.

Here Woo dreamcasts an adaptation of Lines:

I imagine my fifth novel, Lines, would be a welcome challenge to actors, because the four main characters would each get to play two very different versions of themselves. The stars are Joshua the writer and Abby the painter, who in one "line" are married and miserable (which I call Together), while in the other line, they meet for the first time five years later and maybe-sort-of fall in love (which I call Apart). In both lines, they interact with the same two people, Marlene for Joshua and Ted for Abby. In Together, Marlene is Joshua's "work wife"; Ted and Abby share an office and are friendly. In Apart, Josh and Marlene are married; Abby and Ted are about to be.

In Together, Joshua is bitter about everything -- his lack of money, his hatred of his job, his disappointment at his fledgling writing career. Here, Abby unhappily paints large canvases to make money, and she very unhappily lives with her angry tyrant of a husband.

In Apart, Josh and Marlene share a comfortable life, and even though Josh's writing is no more successful than in Together, his financial situation smooths out any and all wrinkles. Here, Abby and Ted are also well off so she has the freedom to paint her true passion, miniature paintings.

In both lines, Abby becomes pregnant. The novel spans nine months. That's not a coincidence!

Okay -- so, whom to cast...

Joshua Kozlov - Jonah Hill. I was actually thinking of him when writing this book. A few years back he starred in a limited TV show called Maniac with Emma Stone, and he showed some impressive dramatic chops.

Abby Kim - Kelly Marie Tran. I did not enjoy any of the new Star Wars movies, but I did like Kelly's take on her Rose Tico character. She'd make a great Abby; she's got the right sad eyes.

Marlene McNally - Melissa McCarthy. If you haven't seen her in non-comedic roles, you really should. Even before Can You Ever Forgive Me?, she was great in The Nines. She's probably a little old for the role, but hey, she can still pass for forty.

Ted Wingfield - Walton Goggins. Also probably a bit too old to play Abby's love interest, but if anybody can pull it off, it's Walton! Such a versatile actor, flips between comedy and tragedy on a dime.

As far as directors go, how about John August, who helmed the movie I already mentioned, The Nines? If you haven't seen that film, it's absolutely worth watching, and because he so effortlessly moves between three stories (Ryan Reynolds, Melissa McCarthy, and Hope Davis each play three different people), I can't think of a better person to make this movie.

Visit Sung J. Woo's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Sung J. Woo & Koda.

The Page 69 Test: Everything Asian.

My Book, The Movie: Skin Deep.

Q&A with Sung J. Woo.

The Page 69 Test: Skin Deep.

My Book, The Movie: Deep Roots.

The Page 69 Test: Deep Roots.

Writers Read: Sung J. Woo (September 2023).

The Page 69 Test: Lines.

--Marshal Zeringue

Robert Dugoni's "Beyond Reasonable Doubt"

Robert Dugoni is a critically acclaimed New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and #1 Amazon bestselling author, reaching over 9 million readers worldwide. He is best known for his Tracy Crosswhite police series set in Seattle. He is also the author of the Charles Jenkins espionage series, the David Sloane legal thriller series, and several stand-alone novels including The 7th Canon, Damage Control, The World Played Chess, and Her Deadly Game. His novel The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell received Suspense Magazine’s 2018 Book of the Year, and Dugoni’s narration won an AudioFile Earphones Award. The Washington Post named his nonfiction exposé The Cyanide Canary a Best Book of the Year.

Here Dugoni dreamcasts an adaptation of his new novel, Beyond Reasonable Doubt:

One of the problems with getting older is I just don’t know actors and actresses as I once did. However, if they make my book into a film I can think of some great actors to play the lead roles. Here’s my dream team.

Emma Stone comes to mind to play the lead, Keera Duggan.

Brie Larson or Caitriona Balfe as Ella, Keera’s oldest sisters.

I actually thought of Albert Finney as Patsy Duggan but, of course, that is no longer possible. Brian Cox would be perfect.

Chiwetel Ejiofor as JP Harrison.

Visit Robert Dugoni's website and Facebook page.

The Page 69 Test: Wrongful Death.

The Page 69 Test: Bodily Harm.

My Book, The Movie: Bodily Harm.

The Page 69 Test: Murder One.

My Book, The Movie: Murder One.

My Book, The Movie: The Eighth Sister.

The Page 69 Test: The Eighth Sister.

My Book, The Movie: A Cold Trail.

The Page 69 Test: A Cold Trail.

The Page 69 Test: The Last Agent.

My Book, The Movie: The Last Agent.

Q&A with Robert Dugoni.

The Page 69 Test: In Her Tracks.

The Page 69 Test: A Killing on the Hill.

My Book, The Movie: A Killing on the Hill.

The Page 69 Test: Beyond Reasonable Doubt.

--Marshal Zeringue

Galina Vromen's "Hill of Secrets"

Galina Vromen began writing fiction after more than twenty years as an international journalist in Israel, England, the Netherlands, France, and Mexico. After a career with Reuters News Agency, she moved to the nonprofit sector as a director at the Harold Grinspoon Foundation.

Vromen launched and directed two reading readiness programs in Israel, one in Hebrew (Sifriyat Pijama) and one in Arabic (Maktabat al-Fanoos). During her tenure, the two programs gifted twenty million books to young children and their families and were named US Library of Congress honorees for best practices in promoting literacy.

Vromen’s stories have been performed on NPR’s Selected Shorts program and appeared in magazines such as American Way, the Adirondack Review, Tikkun, and Reform Judaism. She has an MA in literature from Bar-Ilan University in Israel and a BA in media and anthropology from Hampshire College in Massachusetts.

Vromen and her husband divide their time between Israel and Massachusetts.

Here she shares some ideas for the above-the-line talent for an adaptation of her new novel, Hill of Secrets:

If they make my movie into a book, I would like the lead, Christine, to be someone who has the steely character and look of a young Katharine Hepburn, a woman who follows her own path, regardless of convention and who is attractive and lithe without being pretty. Gertie, the teenage hero of the book, might be portrayed by a young Zoe Kazan, a character who exudes vivaciousness and curiousity, with Kazan's big, inquisitive eyes.

I don't have specific actors in mind for the male roles. I have imagined Andre Aciman, the author of Call Me By Your Name, whose writing I admire a lot, as a model Kurt Koppel, Gertie's father, a German Jewish refugee, and a leading physicist on the atomic bomb project. Asiman (who in fact hails from Egypt's Jewish community) is short, and bald but has a magnetic energy about him in interviews and an intellectual breadth in common with Kurt in my book. I don't have anyone in mind for the other main male characters in Hill of Secrets. I'm happy to leave that to the future casting director to decide!!!

As for the director, I would love to see Mike Newell turning my book into a movie. I loved how he depicted characters and place in the movie adaptation The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and I loved Mona Lisa Smile which he also directed. He is probably best known for other films, like Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Four Weddings and a Funeral, all of which I also thought were very well directed.

Visit Galina Vromen's website.

The Page 69 Test: Hill of Secrets.

--Marshal Zeringue

Susan Walter's "Running Cold"

Susan Walter is the author of Lie by the Pool, Good as Dead, and Over Her Dead Body. She was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. After being given every opportunity―and failing―to become a concert violinist, Walter attended Harvard University. She had hoped to be a newscaster, but the local TV station had different ideas and hired her to write and produce promos instead. Seeking sunshine and a change of scenery, Walter moved to Los Angeles to work in film and television production. Upon realizing writers were having all the fun, Walter transitioned to screenwriting, then directing. She wrote and made her directorial debut with the 2017 film All I Wish, starring Sharon Stone.

Here Walter dreamcasts an adaptation of her new novel, Running Cold:

Of all my books, this is the one I most want to see as a movie … because it was inspired by a movie! Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones starred in a 1993 film called The Fugitive about a doctor (Ford) who was framed for killing his wife (the impossibly beautiful Sela Ward) and escapes arrest in a spectacular collision between a bus and a train. Ford is pursued by a scrappy U.S. Marshal (brilliantly played by Tommy Lee Jones) while trying to solve the murder and clear his name. Thirty years later, I still can’t get this movie out of my head. So I decided to do a version with women in the starring roles, and then up the stakes by setting it in the Canadian Rockies during a blizzard.

Julie Weston Adler is working as a chambermaid in the spooky Banff Springs Hotel (yes it’s a real place!) because her husband lost all their money then took his own life. Not your average hotel employee, Julie is a former Olympian. Her sport, the biathlon, combines skiing and sharp shooting … and yes she has her rifle with her … and may be forced to use it!

I imagine Julie as a Canadian Katniss Everdeen - fearless and athletic with a strong connection to nature. So of course I wrote her with Jennifer Lawrence in mind! Other actresses I think would make excellent Julies are Blake Lively (so tall and commanding!) and Captain Marvel herself, Brie Larson.

The woman Julie is accused of murdering is named Ceci Rousseau. She is a former ballerina and socialite in her sixties with a sharp tongue and style for days. I directed the outlandishly talented Sharon Stone in my 2018 film All I Wish and wrote the character with her in mind. I could also see Helen Mirren or Naomi Watts in the role.

Julie has a suitor, Remy, who is a French-Canadian heartthrob. I would cast another All I Wish actor, Gilles Marini, in this role. He is so talented and gorgeous, with that thick cascade of black hair and irresistible French accent.

Julie has a best friend, Izzy, who is opposite to her in almost every way - relaxed and fun-loving instead of intense and self-critical, has womanly curves where Julie is all muscles and grit. She’s not primarily an actress, but I always imagined Adele in this role. Or maybe the hilarious Nicole Byer from Nailed It.

Finally, in the role of Detective Monique Montpelier, I imagined Kerry Washington, who has the perfect balance of humor and power. I also sometimes mused at how amazing Jennifer Lopez would be. I loved her depiction of a police woman in Steven Soderbergh’s Out of Sight.

If place is a character, then I have to include Banff, Alberta in my casting. The novel is set there, and there is no place like it on earth! It is somehow both majestic and adorable, with its quaint storefronts nestled in between jagged mountain peaks. And the Banff Springs Hotel, where the murder takes place, is a one-of-a-kind castle in the snow. It’s been many decades since a movie was shot there, I think it’s time for this amazing town to come out of retirement!

Visit Susan Walter's website.

Q&A with Susan Walter.

--Marshal Zeringue

Jenny Milchman's "The Usual Silence"

Jenny Milchman is the Mary Higgins Clark award winning and USA Today bestselling author of five novels. Her work has been praised by the New York Times, New York Journal of Books, San Francisco Journal of Books and more; earned spots on Best Of lists including PureWow, POPSUGAR, the Strand, Suspense, and Big Thrill magazines; and received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Booklist, and Shelf Awareness. Four of her novels have been Indie Next Picks. Milchman's short fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies as well as Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and a recent piece on touring appeared in the Agatha award winning collection Promophobia. Milchman's new series with Thomas & Mercer features psychologist Arles Shepherd, who has the power to save the most troubled and vulnerable children, but must battle demons of her own to do it. Milchman is a member of the Rogue Women Writers and lives in the Hudson Valley with her family.

Here she shares some ideas for an adaptation of her new novel, The Usual Silence:

Having their work made into a film or show is pretty much every writer’s dream, but there’s also a tension inherent in adapting a book to an audio-visual medium. Because while the lines and dots and dashes that make up text perform an alchemy in the reader’s mind, as soon as we put a voice and face and body to a character, everybody pretty much sees and hears the same thing. Through our own lenses, of course, but still—there isn’t that unique magic that allows every individual to read their own personal version of a story.

So I don’t have a cast in mind for The Usual Silence, which features a thirty-seven year old psychologist who happens to be beautiful with fiery red hair (I did watch Perry Mattfeld in In the Dark and she captured Dr. Arles Shepherd’s blend of anger and compassion particularly well, so if she’s available, maybe give her a call); a hard-working mother to an Autistic son; and a middle-aged dad with an ailing heart whose daughter has gone missing; plus two child characters, children being particularly tricky to cast. Oh, and a hot potential love interest, dark-haired, blazing blue eyes. A guy.

But I do have a dream director in mind. Someone who’s been a force in the industry since she was a child and has proven herself to possess staying power to which every creative would aspire. Who understands both the everyday oppression women and girls face in this society and others—as well as our ability to transcend that oppression.

Jodie Foster, please direct The Usual Silence, either as a movie or, since the novel is but the first Arles Shepherd tale, by turning it into a limited series.

Can I have my people call Jodie’s?

Learn more about the book and author at Jenny Milchman's website.

My Book, The Movie: Cover of Snow.

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My Book, The Movie: Ruin Falls.

My Book, The Movie: The Second Mother.

The Page 69 Test: The Second Mother.

Q&A with Jenny Milchman.

--Marshal Zeringue

Paula Munier's "The Night Woods"

Paula Munier is the USA TODAY bestselling author of the Mercy Carr mysteries. A Borrowing of Bones, the first in the series, was nominated for the Mary Higgins Clark Award and named the Dogwise Book of the Year. Blind Search also won a Dogwise Award. The Hiding Place and The Wedding Plot both appeared on several “Best Of” lists. Home at Night, the fifth book in the series, was inspired by her volunteer work as a Natural Resources Steward of New Hampshire. Along with her love of nature, Munier credits the hero dogs of Mission K9 Rescue, her own rescue dogs, and a deep affection for New England as her series’ major influences. A literary agent by day, she’s also written three popular books on writing: Plot Perfect, The Writer’s Guide to Beginnings, and Writing with Quiet Hands, as well as Happier Every Day and the memoir Fixing Freddie: The True Story of a Boy, a Mom, and a Very, Very Bad Beagle.

Here Munier dreamcasts an adaptation of the sixth Mercy Carr mystery, The Night Woods:

The Night Woods is my own humble homage to Homer’s The Odyssey—complete with wild boar, lethal storms, and loyal dogs. Given that, it would be great fun to make a movie version directed by Ang Lee, who directed two of my favorite films of all time: Sense and Sensibility and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Lee is as adept at directing classic female- centered stories as he is action-driven tales. He’s also known for directing women—from Michelle Yeoh to Emma Thompson.

The Night Woods is action-driven, but key to the series is my heroine Mercy Carr’s extended family, not only her husband and the dogs, but also most notably her mother and grandmother and the two young women she’s taken under her wing, her teenage cousin Tandie and the young mother Amy. In The Night Woods, my heroine Mercy Carr is heavily pregnant, and the women of the family gather around her like a female energy field. I can picture Rose Leslie as Mercy, with Carolyn Hennesy as her chic mother and Meryl Streep as her warm-hearted veterinarian grandmother. Millie Bobby Brown would make a great Amy, with T.J. McGibbon as Tandie. A powerhouse of strong women, just like Mercy et al.

Visit Paula Munier's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Paula Munier & Bear.

My Book, The Movie: A Borrowing of Bones.

The Page 69 Test: A Borrowing of Bones.

My Book, The Movie: Blind Search.

The Page 69 Test: Blind Search.

My Book, The Movie: The Hiding Place.

The Page 69 Test: The Hiding Place.

Q&A with Paula Munier.

My Book, The Movie: The Wedding Plot.

The Page 69 Test: The Wedding Plot.

My Book, The Movie: Home at Night.

The Page 69 Test: Home at Night.

--Marshal Zeringue

Samantha Greene Woodruff's "The Trade Off"

Samantha Greene Woodruff is the author of Amazon #1 bestseller The Lobotomist’s Wife. She studied history at Wesleyan University and continued her studies at NYU’s Stern School of Business, where she earned an MBA. Woodruff spent nearly two decades working on the business side of media, primarily at Viacom’s Nickelodeon, before leaving corporate life to become a full-time mom. In her newfound “free” time, she took classes at the Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College, where she accidentally found her calling as a historical fiction author. Her writing has appeared in Newsweek, Writer’s Digest, Female First, Read 650, and more.

Here Woodruff dreamcasts an adaptation of her new novel, The Trade Off:

Someone recently asked me for a one sentence, Hollywood-style pitch for The Trade Off and I said: “It’s The Great Gatsby meets The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel on Wall Street.” Not to compare myself for a single moment to Fitzgerald or Amy Sherman-Palladino, but my book is set in the roaring ‘20s and examines the “have and have nots” of the era. And, as I was writing my protagonist, Bea Abramovitz, I always had Rachel Brosnahan’s Midge Maisel in my mind. So, it might be a bit too on the nose, but it’s hard for me to envision anyone but her in the movie version of my book.

Bea is a first-generation American daughter of Russian Jews who immigrated to the US to flee the pogroms, losing everything along the way. Bea has a gift for numbers and, in the stock market boom of the 1920s, wants nothing more than to become a broker in the very male world of Wall Street. But she has three strikes against her: she’s female, she’s poor and she’s Jewish. Bea doesn’t share Midge’s background or career goals, but she has a similar spunk, likeability and determination that conjured Brosnahan’s Midge in my imagination.

For Bea’s friends, I pictured Christina Hendricks à la Mad Men for Henrietta, the dazzling rich Jewish secretary who wants to be a “modern gal” and make it on her own; Taylor Swift for Milly, the awkward girl who finds herself; and Dakota Fanning for Sophie, Bea’s Lower East Side Italian-immigrant best friend.

I pictured the women in the book more than I did the men, but if I were casting Jake, Bea’s alluring, handsome brother, I’d look for Justin Hartley crossed with Owen Wilson and a dash of Vince Vaughn (if age were no issue). Jake is a striking guy with incredible charisma, a natural salesman who can get anyone to do anything based on his good looks and charm. For Bea’s love interest, the kind, handsome and successful banker Nate, I see Glen Powell. He has the both magnetism and the ability to endear.

Visit Samantha Greene Woodruff's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Lobotomist's Wife.

--Marshal Zeringue