Julie Kibler's "Calling Me Home"

Julie Kibler began writing Calling Me Home after learning a bit of family lore: as a young woman, her grandmother fell in love with a young black man in an era and locale that made the relationship impossible. When not writing, Kibler enjoys travel, independent films, music, photography, and corralling her teenagers and rescue dogs.

Here the author dreamcasts an adaptation of Calling Me Home:

While writing Calling Me Home, as most writers are prone to do—I pictured various actors in lead roles.

But some of the characters were tough.

There aren’t many actresses I could picture in the role of my youngest character, my point-of-view character in the past storyline—a teenager.

As I wrote, I played with the idea of Ellie Kendrick, a British actress who portrayed Masterpiece Theater’s Anne Frank and Shakespeare’s Globe’s Juliet. She has the right combination of looks and awkward, “smart girl” characteristics. But she’s British, and she’s growing up fast—already 22.

Then one weekend, well after I sold the book, I saw a film at the Magnolia at the Modern, a theater in an art museum in Fort Worth, Texas, and one of my favorite cultural spots.

When Taissa Farmiga, younger sister of Vera Farmiga (Up in the Air), entered the screen in early scenes of Higher Ground, an indie film directed and acted by the elder Farmiga, I nearly stopped breathing. I leaned toward my husband and whispered, “That’s Isabelle.”

He ignored me, accustomed to my whispered comments and having no idea how significant this moment seemed to me. I’m not even sure he heard me.

But this lovely young actress embodied almost everything I’d imagined about my character Isabelle, a teenage girl in 1930s Kentucky who falls in love with a black teenage boy, her housekeeper’s son. Isabelle is a bit of a loner. She’s often shy and awkward, yet a flame burns inside her that won’t let her accept the status quo. When she dares to fall in love on the wrong side of the race line, she ignores the danger, the warnings, and pursues the relationship with everything in her.

As the teenage Corinne Walker in Higher Ground, Taissa Farmiga mirrored this personality so eerily, I had goose bumps on my scalp. I’ve watched the film at least four times now; that never changes.

Farmiga has since appeared in the FX television series American Horror Story as Violet, a troubled teenage girl. Though vastly different from the role she played in Higher Ground, I still saw glimmers of my character Isabelle in her portrayal.

My original vision of Isabelle was as a shorter, darker-haired girl. Farmiga is lanky and blonde. Strangely, my cover art ended up featuring a lanky blonde. It was not my first cover. It was redesigned fairly late in the game, after the advance readers’ editions had already shipped. Was that fate?

The film would have to be optioned and put into production fast, because Farmiga is growing up and will soon be the wrong age to represent my character Isabelle. She is currently 18—perfect for the role of a character who ages from 16 to about 24 during the course of Calling Me Home. Farmiga still has a few years before it wouldn’t work.

(As a side note, Vera Farmiga would be a perfect choice for Isabelle’s mother. There is a 21-year age difference between these sisters, but their genetic ties are clear.)

And if I tossed out another name? A big, familiar name?

Meryl Streep, aged to almost 90, would excellently resemble Taissa Farmiga as the present-day Isabelle.

And if Streep isn’t available, Betty White would do in an easy pinch. As funny as she is, there is a depth to White I’m not sure has been thoroughly mined in a film.

If anyone has the right connections, would you please send each of these leading ladies a copy of my book? Isabelle will thank you.

Learn more about the book and author at Julie Kibler's website.

The Page 69 Test: Calling Me Home.

Writers Read: Julie Kibler.

--Marshal Zeringue

Katherine Howe's "The House of Velvet and Glass"

Katherine Howe was born in Houston, Texas, and holds degrees in art history and philosophy from Columbia and in American and New England Studies from Boston University. She is the author of The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, which debuted at #2 on the New York Times bestseller list, and which has been translated into more than twenty languages.

Here Howe shares some ideas about casting an adaptation of her latest novel, The House of Velvet and Glass:

The House of Velvet and Glass, a story of one Boston Brahmin family reeling in the aftermath of the Titanic sinking, is tricky to cast, for one thing because people's bodies today look very different than they did one hundred years ago. Sibyl Allston, the main character who must face the coming of the twentieth century with all its glory and terror, is in her late twenties, a brunette with rich brown eyes. I think Winona Ryder would make a beautiful Sibyl, both because of her coloring, but also because of her unique ability to portray strength and fragility at once. Benton Derby, Sibyl's friend and confederate, has short, steely hair and pale blue eyes, and is built like a wrestler. Mark Wahlberg has the right age and build for Benton, though he has dark eyes. Sibyl's wastrel brother Harley is slighter and much younger than Benton, and should be played by the sort of actor one might dearly wish to punch in the face. I'm open to suggestions! Harley's lover Dovie Whistler, a blonde-haired and green-eyed actress, would be wonderfully portrayed by Dakota Fanning, who I'd love to see in a 1910s early jazz age bob, her eyes ringed with kohl. Finally, the patriarch of the Allston family, Lan, appears at two different stages in his life: first as a distinguished retired sea captain of about seventy, which I think would be perfect for Daniel Day Lewis, and next as a privileged teenage boy from Salem who's shipped out on his first clipper voyage to China. I'm not sure who the teenage Lan should be, but whoever it is, he should be comfortable dealing with a shimmering blue macaw.

Learn more about the book and author at Katherine Howe's website.

The Page 69 Test: The House of Velvet and Glass.

--Marshal Zeringue

Dina Nayeri's "A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea"

Dina Nayeri was born in the middle of a revolution in Iran and moved to Oklahoma at ten-years-old. Her debut novel, A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea, was released in 2013 by Riverhead Books (Penguin), translated to 13 foreign languages, and selected as a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers book. Her work is published or scheduled for publication in over 20 countries and has appeared in Granta New Voices, The Southern Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Salon, Glamour, and elsewhere. She holds an MBA and a Master of Education, both from Harvard, and a BA from Princeton. She has worked in high fashion, management consulting, university admissions, investment banking, and once as a grumpy lifeguard. Now Nayeri is at work on her second novel (also about an Iranian family) at the Iowa Writers Workshop where she is a Truman Capote Fellow and Teaching Writing Fellow.

Here the author dreamcasts an adaptation of A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea:

It's hard to write a pretty young Iranian character and not envision Golshifteh Farahani playing her in the movie. But I wouldn't make her my main character. Instead, I would cast this Iranian starlet as the beautiful best friend in the novel, Ponneh. For my main character, Saba (and her twin sister, Mahtab), I would cast someone whose expression can hint at a lot of hidden sorrow, who isn't quite so stunning but is striking and unique, and who has the air and charisma of the storyteller. Maybe Zuleikha Robinson? As for the male lead, I would cast one of my friends who is a dreadful actor, but looks exactly right for the part.

Learn more about the book and author at Dina Nayeri's website.

The Page 69 Test: A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea.

--Marshal Zeringue

Molly Cochran's "Legacy"

Molly Cochran has written and ghostwritten over 25 novels and nonfiction books, including the Edgar-winning bestseller Grandmaster and The Forever King, recipient of the New York Public Library award for Books of the Teen Age, both co-written with Warren Murphy, and the nonfiction bestseller Dressing Thin.

Cochran's most recent novels are the YA titles, Legacy and Poison.

Here she dreamcasts an adaptation of Legacy:

I think every novelist sees the story in her head as a movie and its characters as actors she's familiar with although, since the visualization is entirely mental, sometimes the actors are too old/retired/dead to serve as realistic candidates for a real movie. But since this is all fantasy, I'd choose Zooey Deschanel to play the lead character, Katy Ainsworth, in the movie version of my novel Legacy. Katy is a quirky character, a nerdy beauty whose curiosity and balls-to-the-wall courage always land her in hot water... and sometimes near death.

Her long-suffering boyfriend, Peter, ought to be played by the guy who plays Finn on Glee, just because they're both nice guys who are basically clueless.

Katy's great-grandmother, a good-natured witch with a distinct prejudice against cowen (non-magical persons) should be portrayed by Maggie Smith, although Betty White would add a nice dimension, too.

And Hattie Scott, the High Priestess of the New England village where Katy attends boarding school, would be a terrific vehicle for Whoopi Goldberg.

These characters, by the way, look nothing like the people on the cover of the book. I had no say in that, alas, so please don't hold me accountable for "Katy's" grumpy expression. The sequel to Legacy, titled Poison, just came out a couple of weeks ago. Same cranky people on the cover, so use your imagination.

Learn more about the book and author at Molly Cochran's website and blog.

--Marshal Zeringue

Savanna Welles's "When the Night Whispers"

Savanna Welles is a New Jersey-based writer. She loves jazz, cooking for friends, and spontaneous trips to distant places. Although she has published books under her real name, Valerie Wilson Wesley, When the Night Whispers is her first paranormal romance.

Here the author dreamcasts an adaptation of When the Night Whispers:

If they were to make When the Night Whispers into a film (A girl can dream can't she.), I'd love to see the role of Asa, the captivating, seductive demon, played by Idris Elba. He's an incredible actor, as impressive as a gangster in HBO's The Wire as he was as Luther, the offbeat cop in the BBC production of the same name.

As for Jocelyn, Taraji P. Henson, the actress in Person of Interest would be a good fit. And Luna, nobody could play that role but S. Epatha Merkerson--the Lt. from Law and Order and currently Thaddeus Steven's mistress in Spielberg's Lincoln.

As for a director--Oz Scott who has directed countless TV shows and plays.

Learn more about the book and author at Valerie Wilson Wesley's website.

The Page 69 Test: When the Night Whispers.

--Marshal Zeringue

Phillip DePoy's "December's Thorn"

Phillip DePoy is the author of a number of mysteries, including the Edgar Award winning play Easy. He has published short fiction, poetry, and criticism in Story, The Southern Poetry Review, Xanadu, and Yankee, among other magazines. As a folklorist, Depoy has worked with Joseph Campbell and John Burrison. He is currently the director of the theatre program at Clayton State University.

DePoy's Fever Devilin novels include The Drifter's Wheel and A Corpse’s Nightmare.

Here DePoy shares some ideas for casting an adaptation of December's Thorn, the 7th of seven Fever Devilin novels:

Who doesn’t play this game? The trouble is, no two people ever have the same opinions. I love Gregory Peck’s Ahab. Plenty of other people hate it. And I have a genuine difficulty with December's Thorn (and all the Fever Devilin novels) in that I have no idea who should play Fever Devilin, the main character. I do, however, have lots of opinions about the other characters.

My first choice for Issie, the mysterious ghost-bride, would be Dakota Fanning. I get that she’s a little young, but she’s always been older than her age, she’s a great actor, and she’s from Georgia. I think that Sheriff Skidmore Needle ought to be played by Walton Goggins (yes, Boyd Crowder on Justified)—a perfect combination of rural sensibilities and intelligence; also raised in Georgia. The rugby-playing Shakespeare scholar, Andrews, might be Hugh Grant, don’t you think? Drew Barrymore should play Dr. Ceri Nelson because she has the perfect sense of humor for it. As to Fever’s long-time fiancé Lucinda Foxe, why wouldn’t Renée Zellweger be great?

Now for the main character, the first-person narrator, many people have made suggestions ranging from a young (The Night of the Hunter) Robert Mitchum (alas, dead) to the relatively British Clive Owen (alas, British). Who’s haunted enough to be Fever; who’s got one foot in this world and the other in the next? The Grapes of Wrath Henry Fonda? The Steppenwolf Max Von Sydow—or is he too Scandanavian? How about Shoot the Piano Player’s Charles Aznavour? Too French? I have no idea.

Learn more about the book and author at Phillip DePoy's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Drifter's Wheel.

The Page 69 Test: A Corpse's Nightmare.

The Page 69 Test: December's Thorn.

--Marshal Zeringue

Carl Rollyson's "American Isis"

Carl Rollyson, Professor of Journalism at Baruch College, has published more than forty books ranging in subject matter from biographies of Marilyn Monroe, Lillian Hellman, Martha Gellhorn, Norman Mailer, Rebecca West, Susan Sontag, and Jill Craigie to studies of American culture, genealogy, children’s biography, film, and literary criticism. He has authored more than 500 articles on American and European literature and history. His latest books are Hollywood Enigma: Dana Andrews, a biography of Dana Andrews published in September 2012, and the biography American Isis: The Life and Death of Sylvia Plath, released in January 2013.

Here he shares some ideas for adapting American Isis for the big screen:

Who would I want to play Sylvia Plath? Before I answer that question let me say a few words about Sylvia, the film starring Gwyneth Paltrow. It is a sorry thing. Poor Sylvia, she could not write as fluently as her Teddy boy. She baked cakes when she should have been penning poems. She gassed herself because she could not have him to herself. Poor Sylvia. The film is such a farrago of half-fact and simplistic psychologizing - not to mention that gratuitous nude scene with Paltrow perched on a sofa, bereft because Ted has abandoned her for the pregnant Assia Wevill.

What is astounding about Plath is her relish of multiple roles. But the biographies present her as a mass of contradictions - feminist and subservient wife, high-art poetess and hack writer, the Mademoiselle who wrote a potboiler (a term the Plath character uses for The Bell Jar in Sylvia).

The filmmakers, like her biographers, are simply parroting what her contemporaries said about her. Susan Sontag, a member of the same generation, lamented in an interview that Plath felt obliged to seek popular attention so cravenly. Plath, however, viewed literature as a campaign to be fought on all fronts. The extraordinary point about her is that she was open to all forms and levels of literature. She regarded all writing as human expressiveness; she embraced it with Whitmanesque fervor.

I happen to have written a biography of Marilyn Monroe, and I was particularly struck by a Plath journal entry that reveals a rare insight into Monroe and into the role of a certain kind of literary figure in our culture, but also that reveals Plath's own unique stature, which has made her a cynosure for a holistic sensibility no other writer has been able to bring off as completely. In mid-September 1959, Plath mentions reading Arthur Miller, and about two weeks later she records:

Marilyn Monroe appeared to me last night as a kind of fairy godmother. An occasion of "chatting" with audience much as the occasion with Eliot will turn out, I suppose. I spoke, almost in tears, of how much she and Arthur Miller meant to us, although they could, of course, not know us at all. She gave me an expert manicure. I had not washed my hair, and asked her about hairdressers, saying no matter where I went, they always imposed a horrid cut on me. She invited me to visit her during the Christmas holidays, promising a new, flowering life.

Only Sylvia Plath dreams of audiences with Marilyn Monroe and T.S. Eliot, divining in her dreams that both are necessary. Like Monroe, Plath sought to fashion a persona that put her on a level with everyone - with readers of popular magazines and of literary journals.

So who should play Sylvia in my movie? To me, the answer is obvious: It has to be an actress who is auditioning for the role of Marilyn Monroe, an actress that is not obviously a Plath lookalike anymore than she is a Monroe double, an actress who nevertheless can inhabit the role, and play Plath in all of her yearning and provisionality, an actress who wins our hearts because she is not copying Plath but interpreting her. Who else but an actress who has done for Monroe in Smash what she could also do for Plath: Katharine McPhee.

View the video trailer for American Isis, and learn more about the book and author at Carl Rollyson's website, blog, and Facebook page.

The Page 99 Test: American Isis.

--Marshal Zeringue

Laurie Boyle Crompton's "Blaze"

Laurie Boyle Crompton’s debut YA novel is Blaze (or Love in the Time of Supervillains).

Here she shares some ideas for bringing an adaptation of the novel to the big screen:

If Blaze were made into a movie I'd love to see it cast with some talented unknowns who are trying to break into acting. Writing is a tough gig but acting seems next to impossible! I enjoy encouraging people to pursue their dreams even when they seem beyond reach and love the idea of Blaze helping to make dreams come true. Inexperience is fine, but cast members would need to have an excellent sense of humor because a movie about Blaze would have many, many funny moments.

I'd love to see someone like Tina Fey or Kristen Wiig write the screenplay. Seriously, those women are comedic geniuses. And I think Drew Barrymore did an awesome job directing Whip It and would love to see what she'd do with Blaze. Of course, Kevin Smith has the amazing comic book background knowledge, but I can't quite picture the mash-up between his style and Blaze's story. While writing the book I was careful to make sure readers don't need to be into comics to enjoy it and I'd want the movie to be similar in that way. Of course, I did write in a natural place for Stan Lee to do a movie cameo and would be thrilled to see something like that actually happen! 'Nuff said.

Learn more about the book and author at Laurie Boyle Crompton's website and blog.

--Marshal Zeringue

Cathy Marie Buchanan's "The Painted Girls"

Cathy Marie Buchanan is the author of the national bestseller The Day the Falls Stood Still, a Barnes & Noble Recommends selection and an Indie Next pick.

Here Buchanan shares some ideas for casting an adaptation of her latest novel, The Painted Girls:

It’s tricky business casting The Painted Girls, which tells the story of the real life model—Marie van Goethem—for Edgar Degas’s famous sculpture Little Dancer Aged Fourteen. As per the BBC documentary Private Life of a Masterpiece: Little Dancer Aged Fourteen, when Degas unveiled the artwork back in 1881, it was to reveal something very strange by the standards of the day—a highly realistic wax sculpture of a ballet girl dressed in a fabric tutu, slippers and bodice and wearing a wig of real hair. The public took one look and were horrified. They didn't see a young girl in her ballet clothes. They saw a whore and linked the little dancer with a life of corruption and young girls for sale. She was called a “flower of the gutter.” They said her face was “imprinted with the detestable promise of every vice.” Such notions were underpinned by a long history of often less than noble liaisons between the wealthy season ticket holders to the ballet and the young ballet girls.

Through Marie’s real life older sister Antoinette, The Painted Girls also tells the story of a teenage boy—Émile Abadie—who Degas drew on trial in the criminal court for a grisly murder. Degas titled the work Criminal Physiognomies, in keeping with prevailing “scientific” ideas about innate criminality and certain facial features—a forward thrusting jaw, a low forehead—that marked a person as having a tendency toward crime. In 1881 he exhibited the portrait alongside Little Dancer Aged Fourteen.

Are there teenage starlets out there bearing the “criminal physiognomies” Degas sought to capture in both artworks? I’m not so sure, but here’s my cast:

Marie van Goethem (14) – Elle Fanning, who is not a traditional beauty and who studies ballet

Antoinette van Goethem (18) – Jennifer Lawrence, again not a traditional beauty

Charlotte van Goethem (9), the cherub of the three sisters — Isabella Acres

Bad boy Émile Abadie (19) — Steven Strait

Ignoble season ticket holder Monsieur Lefebvre — Steve Buscemi

Edgar Degas — Robert Downey, Jr.

Learn more about the book and author at Cathy Marie Buchanan's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Painted Girls.

--Marshal Zeringue

Cassandra Rose Clarke's "The Mad Scientist's Daughter"

Cassandra Rose Clarke is a speculative fiction writer living amongst the beige stucco and overgrown pecan trees of Houston, Texas. She graduated in 2006 from The University of St. Thomas with a bachelor’s degree in English, and in 2008 she completed her master’s degree in creative writing at The University of Texas at Austin.

Here she dreamcasts an adaptation of her new novel, The Mad Scientist's Daughter:

I’m enough of a movie nerd that I picked out a dream director to go with my dream cast, so let’s start there. I would love to see The Mad Scientist’s Daughter movie directed by Wong Kar-wai, a Hong Kong director I’m sort of obsessed with. His films depict repressed longing and separated lovers beautifully, and he captures intense, subtle emotions through a blend of music and striking imagery. I would be thrilled to see how he’d adapt my book.

Next up is casting. The novel follows the main character, Cat, over the course of about thirty years, with a sizable chunk of time spent on when she’s in high school and college. For young Cat, I can’t think of anyone more perfect than Kara Haywood, the actress who played Suzy Bishop in Moonrise Kingdom. I love her intensity and subtle melancholy.

I think Kate Winslet would be wonderful for adult Cat. Again, she can generate the right intensity and melancholy, and she does a good job with flawed, often unlikeable characters (like Clem in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. She’s also beautiful in the way I pictured Cat — a blend of classical and quirky and a little vulnerable, all at once.

Finn, the android Cat falls in love with, was a difficult character to cast. I finally decided on Danny Pudi, best known for playing the robotic Abed on Community — so he could certainly pull of Finn’s personality. He also has Finn’s large dark eyes. Win.

Richard Feversham, the human man Cat eventually marries, could be played by any one of the strong-jawed, handsome blond men currently working in Hollywood. I’d probably go with Chris Pine.

Finally, we have the titular mad scientist, Cat’s father Dr. Novak. I struggled a bit with this one, too. At first I wanted to go with Lance Henriksen, partially because it amused me (Bishop!) and partially because, fifteen years ago, he would have been pretty perfect. If I have to choose an actor who’s the right age now, I pick Jeff Bridges. He’s a pretty different sort of actor, I guess, but he has that affable distant quality that works well for Dr. Novak. Plus, I liked him as a computer genius dad in Tron: Legacy.

Learn more about the book and author at Cassandra Rose Clarke's website and blog.

--Marshal Zeringue