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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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