Cynthia Swanson's "This Isn’t New"

Cynthia Swanson is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the psychological suspense novels The Bookseller, The Glass Forest, and Anyone But Her, and the new short story collection This Isn’t New: Women’s Historical Stories. Swanson was named 2025 Indie Author of the Year by the Indie Author Project, has received the Colorado Book Award (twice) and the WILLA Literary Award, won the Indie Author Project contest, and been a finalist for the High Plains Book Award, the WILLA Literary Award, and the CAL Award. She is also the editor of the award-winning anthology Denver Noir. She lives with her family in Denver.

Here Swanson dreamcasts an adaptation of one of the stories in This Isn’t New:

Because This Isn’t New: Women’s Historical Stories is a short story collection, I’m focusing on a singular story as I think about the book as a movie. This is something we’ve seen Hollywood do: the movies Brokeback Mountain, based on Annie Proulx’s story of the same title, and Hitchcock’s Rear Window, based on Cornell Woolrich’s story “It Had to Be Murder,” are but two examples.

There’s potential for quite a few of the stories in This Isn’t New to be expanded into movies, but one story that stands out to me as a possibility is, ironically, titled “A Possibility Nonetheless.” It’s 1965, and the main character, Caro, is an aspiring musician who has just spent several weeks cold turkey detoxing from heroin as she and her boyfriend, Gene, drive cross-country to relocate from New York City to San Diego. In this place of hippies on the beach and surfers in the waves, Caro feels like her soul has come home. Gene is less enamored, especially when, as an unemployed college dropout, he’s confronted with the sight of transport ships filled with draftees headed to Vietnam. When Gene flees San Diego, Caro must grapple head-on with a potential slide back into addiction.

So who would play Caro? I can absolutely see Sadie Sink in this role. I wrote a draft of this story years ago, and Sadie Sink wasn’t on my radar then, but I’ve always pictured Caro as a redhead, and it’s easy for me to envision Sadie in the role. I loved her as a badass teenager in Stranger Things, and I’d enjoy seeing her in a more adult role, taking on Caro’s challenges in “A Possibility Nonetheless.” I also think it would be fun to see Sadie in a period piece like “A Possibility Nonetheless.” She’d be an excellent choice for free-spirited yet conflicted Caro.

Visit Cynthia Swanson's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Bookseller.

The Page 69 Test: The Glass Forest.

Writers Read: Cynthia Swanson (February 2018).

Q&A with Cynthia Swanson.

The Page 69 Test: Anyone But Her.

--Marshal Zeringue

Kayla Hardy's "The Quarter Queen"

Kayla Hardy is a mythology expert and multi-hyphenate author and screenwriter of Louisiana Creole descent. She earned her PhD in creative writing and African American literature from SUNY Binghamton University. Hardy is an adjunct professor at SUNY Binghamton University and is an accomplished scholar of Black folklore, mythology, and Voodoo.

Here she dreamcasts an adaptation of The Quarter Queen, her first novel:

The Quarter Queen is the story of New Orleans’ infamous Voodoo Queen, Marie Laveau and her daughter, Marie Laveau II set within a morally gray fantasy that tackles magical factional politics within a racialized 19th century context. At its heart, it is a tumultuous mother-daughter story where Marie’s rebellious daughter must retrace her mother’s past to find answers to very real circling threats in the present. Secretive and filled with awe-inspiring magic, Marie is a figure few can truly know, even her own daughter.

For me, because The Quarter Queen began as a television pilot in its original form, there was always only one actress I pictured capable of tackling Marie’s complex dual nature—and that is Thandiwe Newton. With a take-no-prisoners ferocity and an almost ethereal sensitivity, she remains the immediate choice for Marie’s fiery power and spiritual sageness. Naturally the next question became, but who would play Marie “Ree” Laveau II? And I have to admit that my agent had a pretty great idea that Thandiwe’s actual daughter, Nico Parker, should play Ree. It would be iconic to see an actual mother-daughter duo take on the Maries, an endeavor I can only imagine would lend itself to an authentic dynamic it would be hard to recreate otherwise.

Visit Kayla Hardy's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Quarter Queen.

Q&A with Kayla Hardy.

--Marshal Zeringue