Jessica Anya Blau's "Shopgirls"

Jessica Anya Blau was born in Boston and raised in Southern California. Her novels have been translated into many different languages, and featured on The Today Show, Good Morning America, CNN and NPR, and in Cosmo, Vanity Fair, In Style, Country Living, Bust, Time Out, Parade, Oprah Summer Reads, Oprah Daily and other national publications. The books have been optioned for film and television. Blau's short stories and essays have been published in numerous magazines, journals and anthologies. Blau also works as a screenwriter, a ghostwriter, and sometimes as a writing professor. Currently, she lives in New York.

Here the author dreamacasts an adaptation of her new novel, Shopgirls:

A story about a young woman finding her way through life in day-glo, high-fashion, San Francisco in 1985.

Zippy is on a quest. She wants to 1. find her father as she is the result of a one-night-stand and her mother doesn’t remember her father’s name. 2. Figure out how to be an adult (her mother was no example). 3. Learn how to kiss a man and date (she was a theater geek in school). And, 4. Figure out how to make a living doing what you love (Zippy loves clothes and fashion).

The Cast:

Zippy: she’s 19 and grew up in a one-bedroom apartment above a liquor store in San Francisco. When her mother’s boyfriend moved in, she slept in the hall beside the bathroom with the swollen, un-shuttable door.

Zippy has a great eye and an excellent sense of style. She buys some clothes from the Salvation Army, fixes them up, and gets a job at I. Magnin, the most exclusive department store in San Francisco.

Zippy needs to be played by someone whose name we don’t yet know. Anyone plucky, smart, joyful, and open to the world.

The Lifetime Salesgirls: It’s 1985 so they are all called "girls" no matter how old they are, and at work they are referred to as "Miss." Some are resentful of youthful, energetic Zippy, and some love her and want to help her navigate adulthood.

They could be played by:

Parker Posey — mean Miss Yolanda

Amy Adams — confused Miss Liaskas

Julia Roberts and Kyra Sedgwick — the snooty Miss Braughn and Miss Braughn

Lucy Liu — the phlegmatic Miss Lee

Viola Davis — the watchful Miss Karen

Da’Vine Joy Randolph — the gung-ho Miss Dani

Zippy's “family”:

Nicole Kidman — Zippy’s sweet but childish mother who works at the Hardware Depot (and loves it! She wants Zippy to work there, too).

Leonardo DiCaprio — Zippy’s mother’s boyfriend, Howard, who is hapless, kind, and loves watching PTL club and eating Tang out of the jar. He slips into what he thinks of as Elizabethan English when he’s been drinking, which he does every night.

Jenna Ortega — Zippy’s smart, worldly, rich-born roommate, Raquel.

There are other characters, too, but they’re a surprise when they show up, and I don’t want to give anything away!

Learn more about the book and author at Jessica Anya Blau's website, Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.

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Writers Read: Jessica Anya Blau (June 2016).

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Coffee with a Canine: Jessica Anya Blau & Baby.

--Marshal Zeringue