Teresa Dovalpage's "Death Comes in through the Kitchen"

Teresa Dovalpage was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1966. She earned her BA in English literature and an MA in Spanish literature at the University of Havana, and her PhD in Latin American literature at the University of New Mexico. She is the author of twelve other works of fiction and three plays, and is the winner of the Rincón de la Victoria Award and a finalist for the Herralde Award.

Here Dovalpage dreamcasts an adaptation of her new book, Death Comes in through the Kitchen:

The novel takes place, for the most part, in Havana. The director may want to shoot it somewhere in Florida. La Pequeña Habana, perhaps. Or who knows, they may get to film the whole thing in Cuba.

The story starts with Matt Sullivan, a San Diego journalist, arriving in Havana. Yarmila, his Cuban girlfriend, should be waiting for him at the airport, but she is not. After finding her dead in a bathtub, Matt asks Padrino, a private detective, for help.

Idris Elba would be the perfect actor to play Padrino, a Santeria practitioner who, after retiring from the Cuban police, has become a private eye to make ends meet.

I would love to see Adrienne Bailon as Yarmila. She can play a complicated character and has tons of sandunga. I am not sure how Yarmila will appear in the movie since the character dies on page 20. But she is key to the story and the reader gets to know her through her food blog and Matt’s memories. Flashbacks?

Another cool character is Marlene Martinez, the National Revolutionary Police lieutenant who is assigned to the case and works closely with Padrino. In my mind, she looks, acts and moves like Rosario Dawson. I imagined Marlene as a tall, striking Cuban with the dangerous curves that I always wanted for myself, but never got.

Visit Teresa Dovalpage's website.

Writers Read: Teresa Dovalpage.

The Page 69 Test: Death Comes in through the Kitchen.

--Marshal Zeringue

D.J. Butler's "Witchy Winter"

D.J. (“Dave”) Butler grew up in swamps, deserts, and mountains. After messing around for years with the practice of law, he finally got serious and turned to his lifelong passion for storytelling. He now writes adventure stories for readers of all ages, plays guitar, and spends as much time as he can with his family.

Here Butler shares some casting ideas for an adaptation of his new novel, Witchy Winter:

I haven't cast all the roles of the Witchy War books in my head, but I have thought about several:

Krysten Ritter plays Jessica Jones with the kind of damaged fragility and rage that my protagonist Sarah Elytharias Penn needs to show. Her coloring is also right, and if she's clearly much too good-looking ... well, that's Hollywood.

Jeff Bridges might now be getting too old. But whoever plays Bad Bill, the fallen Cavalier military man become a gunfighter and thug in New Orleans, should play him like Bridges played Rooster Cogburn. Occasionally baffled, often over his head, but loyal and able to be decisive. And Bridges in that role looked the part.

I really like Chiwetel Ejiofor for Etienne Ukwu. Again, he might now have aged past the part, but the kind of self-possession, focus, and threat that Ejiofor emanated in Serenity are what the gangster son of the Bishop of New Orleans needs to broadcast.

Visit D.J. Butler's website.

The Page 69 Test: Witchy Winter.

Writers Read: D.J. Butler.

--Marshal Zeringue

Man Martin's "The Lemon Jell-O Syndrome"

Man Martin writes and teaches in Atlanta, Georgia. He has been twice named Georgia Author of the Year.

Here Martin dreamcasts an adaptation of his latest novel, The Lemon Jell-O Syndrome:

Bone King, suffering a mysterious neurological condition that intermittently prevents his going through doors, consults with the famous Dr. Limongello (pronounced Lemon Jell-O) who gives a bizarre diagnosis - King’s soul is becoming detached from his brain - and an equally bizarre therapy; when stuck at a door, he is to dance - following the same logic that stutterers communicate clearly when they sing. And each day, to address the underlying problem, he must perform a series of tasks aimed at relearning empathy for others and ultimately for himself.

Casting this to my satisfaction will require a time-machine.

Dr. Limongello is a bit “mad;” a doctor whose infectious self-confidence could make a patient accept a patently absurd diagnosis. Who better than John Astin, best known for his role of Gomez Addams on television’s The Addams Family. Cartoonist Charles Addams’ original Gomez was pudgy and sleepy-eyed, but Astin’s version was an irresistible manic force. He didn’t merely kiss his wife, her devoured her, starting at the fingertips and working his way up to her neck. That’s Limongello; fizzing with manic energy, evidence that if the world is cockeyed, you have to be a little cockeyed yourself to live in it properly.

Bone King is a socially awkward grammar nerd, afraid - quite rightly - that his wife is carrying on with the yardman. I visualize him played by Alec Guiness with the same dreamy abstraction he brought to The Man in the White Suit. Guiness is a master of physical comedy, but what sets him apart is his expression of forlorn unsurprise at the disasters that rain down on him, a look of wounded dignity. This is the look Bone might wear, finding himself frozen at a threshold in some public place, and compelled to break into dance to get through.

Visit Man Martin's website and blog.

Coffee with a Canine: Man Martin and Zoe.

The Page 69 Test: The Lemon Jell-O Syndrome.

--Marshal Zeringue

J. E. Smyth's "Nobody's Girl Friday"

J. E. Smyth is Professor of History at the University of Warwick and author or editor of Reconstructing American Historical Cinema from Cimarron to Citizen Kane (2006), Edna Ferber's Hollywood (2009), Hollywood and the American Historical Film (ed., 2012), Fred Zinnemann and the Cinema of Resistance (2015), and the BFI classics monograph on From Here to Eternity (2015).

Here Smyth shares some ideas about developing a film version of her new book, Nobody's Girl Friday: The Women Who Ran Hollywood:

It’s a catchy title. But a feature film? Meh. I happen to think actress Olivia de Havilland was quite right about Feud (2017) and the scandalous way the male screenwriter portrayed her, playing fast and loose with the facts to construct a story about another Hollywood catfight between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. The California judge was correct when she said no one “owns history,” but 75 years ago, Hollywood producers routinely consulted living historical subjects and scrutinized the script to avoid libel suits. I think in this recent case, the writer was too sloppy or stupid to realize Ms. de Havilland was still alive.

What I would like is to develop Nobody’s Girl Friday as a documentary, assembling as much archival footage as I can to complement the story of the women who ran Hollywood in its “golden era.” I certainly don’t want Susan Sarandon playing Bette Davis in a feature film—and if a feature had to be made, I would rather wait till CGI had improved enough to cast Davis as herself (with the family’s permission, of course). But there are certainly great individual stories in the book that would make strong biopics. Mary C. McCall Jr., Barbara McLean, Silvia Schulman, Dorothy Jeakins—their lives are far more interesting and poignant than anything some contemporary screenwriter could dream up.

I admire the work of Margot Robbie and Lena Headey (a perfect Joan Harrison), but very few contemporary actresses could fill the shoes of the women in Nobody’s Girl Friday. Their attitudes toward work, equality, power, education, and fulfillment are often strikingly different from those held by women in today’s Hollywood.

#MeToo has certainly done a lot to highlight sexual harassment in contemporary Hollywood and promises great strides towards gender equality, but too often the studio era has been wrongfully dismissed as a system bent on the disempowerment and abuse of women. The media has forgotten the achievements of other generations. The image of the victimized woman has been selling in movie theaters for decades. Nobody’s Girl Friday would offer something different—and some might not be ready for the challenge.

Learn more about Nobody's Girl Friday at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Nobody's Girl Friday.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nell Hampton's "Lord of the Pies"

An avid foodie and writer, Nell Hampton (AKA Nancy J. Parra) decided to finally combine her two loves. She lives in Richmond, VA.

Her new novel is Lord of the Pies.

Here Hampton/Parra dreamcasts a small-screen adaptation of Lord of the Pies:

I think my book is better as a television series. I think you could enjoy seeing each episode play out allowing the characters room to grow.

I would like Carrie Ann to be played by Kelly Cuoco and I can imagine her new friend Penny played by Karen Gillan who played Amy Pond – my favorite Dr. Who character.

Martin Freeman is a favorite actor. I think he could play the police inspector.

Ian Gordon would be played by a young Sean Connery and Jasper is definitely Chris Hemsworth. So many fun characters in this series.

Mrs. Worth could be played by Penelope Wilton and Chef Butterbottom could be played by Richard Griffiths.

Visit Nell Hampton / Nancy J. Parra's website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

Coffee with a Canine: Nancy J. Parra and Little Dog.

The Page 69 Test: Lord of the Pies.

Writers Read: Nell Hampton.

--Marshal Zeringue

Spencer Kope's "Whispers of the Dead"

Spencer Kope is the Crime Analyst for the Whatcom County Sheriff's Office. Currently assigned to Detectives Division, he provides case support to detectives and deputies, and is particularly good at identifying possible suspects. In his spare time he developed a database-driven analytical process called Forensic Vehicle Analysis (FVA) used to identify the make, model and year range of vehicles from surveillance photos. It's a tool he's used repeatedly to solve crimes. One of his favorite pastimes is getting lost in a bookstore, and he lives in Washington State.

Here Kope dreamcasts an adaptation of his new novel, Whispers of the Dead:

I’m guessing there are a lot of writers out there who, like me, flesh out their characters well before ever putting them to paper. I’ve gone as far as to cut out pictures of people that look like the mental image I have of a character. These go on my storyboard, where they constantly reinforce that image.

When I started writing Collecting the Dead, the first book in the Special Tracking Unit series, I pictured man-tracker Magnus “Steps” Craig as a shorter, mid-twenties version of Jared Padalecki, who plays Sam Winchester in the series Supernatural. He just seemed to fit. Sam’s brother Dean (played by Jensen Ackles) isn’t exactly what I pictured for Special Agent Jimmy Donovan, but he’s close enough. Maybe I just liked the way Sam and Dean work together and pictured Steps and Jimmy doing the same.

Or maybe I was watching too many episodes of Supernatural....

The third member of the Special Tracking Unit is the sometimes snarky Diane Parker. Though Diane is only in her mid-fifties, I’d love to see her played by Dame Judi Dench. Ellis Stockwell, the slightly eccentric neighbor who has an extensive collection of hats and likes to sunbathe in the nude, has to be played by either Tommy Lee Jones or John Cleese (though I’m leaning toward Cleese since Ellis insists on talking with a British accent, despite not being British).

In Whispers of the Dead, the latest edition of the STU series, Steps and Jimmy find themselves in El Paso, where they team up with Detective Tony Alvarado and Lieutenant Kevin Kelly. I have a hard time with Tony because I can picture him as Michael Peña, but I also like Benicio del Toro in that role. Michael Clarke Duncan of Armageddon and The Green Mile fame would be perfect for Kevin Kelly, but sadly we lost him a few years ago.

Somewhere in all this Lou Diamond Phillips has to make an appearance ... because he’s Lou Diamond Phillips.

Visit Spencer Kope's website.

Writers Read: Spencer Kope.

The Page 69 Test: Whispers of the Dead.

--Marshal Zeringue

Cherie Burns's "Searching for Beauty"

Cherie Burns's books include the biography Searching for Beauty—The Life of Millicent Rogers, the American Heiress Who Taught the World About Style, The Great Hurricane: 1938, Stepmotherhood—How to Survive Without Feeling Frustrated, Left Out or Wicked, and Diving for Starfish: The Jeweler, the Actress, the Heiress, and One of the World's Most Alluring Pieces of Jewelry.

Here she shares some ideas for casting an adaptation of Searching for Beauty:

When I wrote Searching for Beauty—The Life of Millicent Rogers, I believed a wonderful movie lay within Rogers’s story. Any actress would want to play the beautiful, willful, stylish Standard Oil heiress who struggled to lead her stylish life out from under the oppression of, yes, wealth and the power it bestows on families to dominate their children. Millicent lived her life emblematic of each decade of the twentieth century until the movie star Clark Gable dumped her in Hollywood in 1946. She was a debutante, a flapper, a fashion muse, an expat, and poster girl for the US war effort in WWII. Her son would have even told you she’d been a spy. Then she came to New Mexico and found a different kind of peace and beauty with the landscape and Native American men than she had been able to achieve elsewhere. She was never still, always searching and changing. In my imagination I have seen Cate Blanchett, Gwyneth Paltrow, Charlize Theron, and Elizabeth De Bicki, among some other leading actresses, play her. It is quite a role.

And the men! She had so many dashingly handsome men in her life. Tom Hiddleston would play Arturo Peralta Ramos, the Argentine playboy who becomes her second husband. I have always seen Viggo Mortensen as the older, Austrian Count Salm with whom she elopes to outrage her parents.

Jane Fonda, who is related to the Rogers family in real life, could be Mary Rogers, Millicent’s mother. Her strong-willed manipulatve father could be played by Bruce Greenwood. Her full story begins when she is coming out at her debutante ball and being courted by the Prince of Wales (Cillian Murphy?) and ends 30 years later with her early death in New Mexico. But flashbacks could handle this. Maybe there are parts here for two actresses. Naomi Watts would be a fine Dorothy Brett, the British aristocrat who came to Taos with the writer DH Lawrence and his wife and became an eccentric painter. Oh, there are so many characters. I haven’t even begun on the Native American men Millicent falls in love with. Tony Luhan, the Taos pueblo elder who was married to the socialite Mabel Dodge Luhan, charmed every woman from Georgia O’Keeffe on. I believe Millicent loved him, too. Now there is a casting challenge.! DH’s wife Frieda Lawrence is another great part for a character actress. Maybe I will be a casting director in my next life!

Visit Cherie Burns's website.

My Book, The Movie: Diving for Starfish.

--Marshal Zeringue

Susan Henderson's "The Flicker of Old Dreams"

Susan Henderson is a five-time Pushcart Prize nominee and the recipient of an Academy of American Poets award. She is the author of the novels Up from the Blue (2010) and The Flicker of Old Dreams (2018).

Here Henderson dreamcasts an adaptation of The Flicker of Old Dreams:

There is some Hollywood interest in this book, so let's hope all this casting is for real.

The book is about the death of small town America as told by a mortician. Mary, the narrator of the book, is the town's embalmer and more comfortable with the dead than the living. She's socially awkward but has a strong sense of self. Is there a female Edward Norton? An introverted Amanda Palmer? Whoever plays her has to be quirky and layered and have things to say but lack the courage to say them.

Matthew Gray Gubler (from Criminal Minds) or Ezra Miller (Perks of Being a Wallflower) could play Robert, the damaged outcast who returns to this small town to be with his terminally ill mother. His homecoming peels a scab off an old wound in town and sets the trouble in motion.

Frances McDormand (Fargo) would be great as his mother, Doris, who is dying of lung cancer and churns out paint-by-numbers art. Her character teaches Mary something about living.

I'd love to see Michael Keaton (Birdman) as Mary's father, the funeral director, who suffers from depression and alcoholism. He wants to find love, if only he could figure out how to do it better.

His best friend, the sheriff, would be really powerful with Benicio Del Toro or John Malkovich in the role, as he crosses a line to protect the traditions of this small town.

Learn more about the book and author at Susan Henderson's website.

The Page 69 Test: Up From the Blue.

The Page 69 Test: The Flicker of Old Dreams.

Writers Read: Susan Henderson.

--Marshal Zeringue

Amanda Ottaway's "The Rebounders"

Amanda Ottaway is an author and journalist whose work has appeared in The Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, Washington City Paper, VICE, The Nation, espnW, Charlotte Magazine, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and a few poetry anthologies. She is an International Women's Media Foundation (IWMF) reporting fellow and a 2017-2018 Girls Write Now mentor. She is currently the Brooklyn courts reporter, covering the Eastern District of New York, for Courthouse News. Previously she worked at the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting in Washington, D.C.

Here Ottaway dreamcasts an adaptation of her new book, The Rebounders: A Division I Basketball Journey:

For me, one of the most intriguing characters in The Rebounders: A Division I Basketball Journey is head women’s basketball coach Deborah Katz.

She’s so complex I spend a good chunk of the book trying to figure her out. I still haven’t. But the first time I saw Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada (incidentally, a movie adapted from a book), I knew I wanted that version of Streep to play Coach Katz if The Rebounders ever became a movie.

It’s because of the power.

Miranda Priestly, Streep’s character, oozes power. First of all, she’s brilliant. She also works constantly at the expense of everything else in her life, the way many high-level coaches have to operate. And because she works like that, she expects everyone around her to do the same -- like coaches do.

Anne Hathaway, who plays Priestly’s co-assistant, Andy, in the film, is forced to fully re-prioritize her life for her boss, which she does because it's such an incredible opportunity. But her relationship, friendships, social life, her own writing -- all bow to Miranda Priestly. All in, or go home.

I see similarities between Andy’s position and the schedules of Division I athletes. We loved basketball. But because of the financial bonanza of the scholarship and the awesomeness of the chance, we sacrificed for hoops almost every day.

*

Miranda Priestly does not yell. She does not throw temper tantrums or chairs or clipboards. She exudes a cool and quiet and terrifying power, translated by Streep’s withering gaze.

Coach Katz exercised a similar kind of power over us, and I think in a lot of ways Streep and Hathaway mirror the coach-player relationship.

Coaches are vulnerable. If they don’t win games, they don’t keep their jobs. But as a kid, as an eighteen-year-old, you feel like you’re more vulnerable than your coach is. She’s the grown-up. She’s the one who knows the athletic director. She could bench you for any reason, kick you out of the locker room, take away your scholarship. And because you are young and basketball is your life, it’s what you live for, what you love more than anything, and your coach knows that, getting benched is one of the most painful punishments there is. Losing a scholarship is one of the scariest things that could happen to you. So to us, that power dynamic felt uneven.

One of the main points I tried to convey in The Rebounders is that college coaches have more power over their young players than I think they realize.

We internalized everything our coaches said to us. Like Anne Hathaway, we listened closely and took them seriously and tried to please them and sometimes did not know how to, and that was scary. We also disagreed with them and sometimes got angry and lashed out at them. We all had a lot of money and emotion at stake.

Coaches, if you’re reading this, please be gentle with your players. You hold more sway with them than you probably know.

Meryl, Your Highness, if you’re reading this, call me.

Visit Amanda Ottaway's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Cherie Burns's "Diving for Starfish"

Cherie Burns's books include the biography, Searching for Beauty—The Life of Millicent Rogers, the American Heiress Who Taught the World About Style, The Great Hurricane: 1938, and Stepmotherhood—How to Survive Without Feeling Frustrated, Left Out or Wicked.

Here she shares some ideas for casting an adaptation of her new book, Diving for Starfish: The Jeweler, the Actress, the Heiress, and One of the World's Most Alluring Pieces of Jewelry:

My vote is for Reese Witherspoon to play me in the adaptation of Diving for Starfish. I’m the character who goes on a quest to find three famous ruby and amethyst starfish brooches made in Paris in the 1930s. Only as I have been out talking about the book this past week have I thought of it as a film narrative. It's a lot like The Orchid Thief. The reader, or audience in this case, would come along with me on my search which takes me into all sorts of places behind the scenes in the jewelry world and into the homes of some of the rich and famous women who have owned them. Millicent Rogers and Claudette Colbert. Great cameos there for Gwyneth Paltrow and Catherine Zeta Jones! Tim Hiddleston would be the leading jeweler Lee Siegelson. Kirsten Scott Thomas could be a superb Jeanne Boivin, the haughty French joailliére whose salon, the House of Boivin, created the starfish. Bruce Greenwood would make a superb Ward Landrigan. Brad Pitt could excel as the hustling Texas dealer in the story. Murray Monschein…. Hmmmmm? How about Danny Devito? Is he still out there.? Alicia Vikander as Nathalie Hocq, the French mystery beauty who owns the Boivin archives and smoked cigars. Lesley Manville suits the role of classic discreet Parisienne lady “authenticator.” Let’s go against type and have Helen Mirren play the plain-faced designer Juliette Moutard. I will give more thought to who should play all those fascinating jewelers in New York and Paris.

This could be fun!

Visit Cherie Burns's website.

--Marshal Zeringue