Jacinda Townsend's "Mother Country"

Jacinda Townsend is the author of Saint Monkey, which won the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize and the James Fenimore Cooper Prize. She is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and teaches in the MFA program at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Here Townsend dreamcasts an adaptation of her new novel, Mother Country:

The hardest question, for me, is casting. When I think of my protagonist Shannon Cavanagh, whose muted sauciness informs so much of the plot, I think of Kerry Washington. My co-protagonist, Souria Maouloud, does not speak the same language as her captors and neighbors for so much of the novel: Thandiwe Newton is an actress whose range would allow her to commit all the on-screen physicality that Souria's role would require. Shannon's husband, Vladimir Grenfell, is such an unmitigated dork, and in some way nonetheless to blame for everything that goes wrong in this novel. LaKeith Stanfield would be a perfect Vlad.

My favorite films are the Star Wars episodes, and when I finally traveled to North Africa, I deeply understood why it had been the real-world backdrop for so much of the Star Wars universe. After having been there one can see, in Obi-Wan Kenobi's costume, an echo of the robes that men wear in the Sahara; the swoop bikes that make for such prevalent Star Wars transportation very much recall the mopeds that clot the medinas of North Africa. To watch even ten minutes of Tunisian-set Star Wars is to sense the magnitude and force of rock formations in the Sahara: it's an ancient, powerful place that's impervious to change even as it is ever-evolving.

I'd love, then, for the North African half of Mother Country to be filmed on location--as much as the cities of Marrakech and Essaouira are a backdrop for much of the plot, the Sahara Desert is what truly shapes each of these characters, even the American ones. Souria, of course, has an iron that's been forged in the Sahara's hot, hot cultural fire. But Shannon and Vlad don't understand how they are butting up against a desert-shaped culture that leaves a child wholly free at the same time she is utterly, lovingly attended to, and this is their great failing in the novel.

I'm also someone who's incredibly picky about music--not only did I assemble a six-piece ensemble to play at my wedding, but I arranged all the world music. The soundtrack of Mother Country would ideally be played by Tinariwen, a well-known band from the Saharan region of northern Mali. Besides being deeply involved in the region's politics, some of which are front and center of Mother Country, Tinariwen are expert at creating the mood I can describe only as "heightened trance." To see them in concert is a magical experience, but to hear them in-studio is to salve the soul. Having the texture of their work behind these characters would be a dream.

Visit Jacinda Townsend's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Brian Klingborg's "Wild Prey"

Brian Klingborg has both a B.A. (University of California, Davis) and an M.A. (Harvard) in East Asian Studies and spent years living and working in Asia. He currently works in early childhood educational publishing and lives in New York City. Klingborg is the author of two non-fiction books on Shaolin kung fu; Kill Devil Falls; and the Lu Fei China mystery series (Thief of Souls and Wild Prey.)

Here Klingborg dreamcasts the lead for an adaptation of Wild Prey:

This one might seem hard – but actually, it’s easy. I have in mind the perfect actor to play Inspector Lu Fei.

First, a bit of background. Lu Fei lives in northern China, just outside the city of Harbin. His native language is Mandarin, of course, although he has spent some time in the US and speaks passable English. He has an extensive background in the martial arts. He is handsome but not too handsome. He has a slightly caustic sense of humor. His tough exterior masks a kind heart. And while the plot of Wild Prey has him going undercover to infiltrate the hidden compound of a Burmese warlord, he is very much an anti-James Bond: faithful to the woman he loves, has no license to kill, and he prefers cold beer and small-town life to martinis and jet-set travel.

Assuming we are casting for an American-made film intended for a Western audience, we’ll need an actor who is Chinese, but speaks English fluently (and it would be great if he spoke Chinese as well); who can make an audience laugh, but also play a bad-ass; and, if we’re being completely honest and practical, is bankable.

There is one such guy who embodies all these qualities – and wouldn’t you know it, he’s actually from Harbin! I’m talking about the star of the recent blockbuster Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings: Simu Liu.

So, Simu, if you’re reading this, hit a brother up!

Visit Brian Klingborg's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Natalie Jenner's "Bloomsbury Girls"

Natalie Jenner is the author of the instant international bestseller The Jane Austen Society and Bloomsbury Girls. A Goodreads Choice Award runner-up for historical fiction and finalist for best debut novel, The Jane Austen Society was a USA Today and #1 national bestseller, and has been sold for translation in twenty countries.

Here Jenner dreamcasts an adaptation of Bloomsbury Girls:

Ironically, it was an early pandemic rewatch of the 1987 movie 84 Charing Cross Road, based on the wonderful book by Helene Hanff, that lit the creative spark for my new novel Bloomsbury Girls, which is about a trio of women working in a 1950s London bookshop who are engaged in a battle of the sexes with their male department heads and decide to stage a coup. Although the movie focuses on the epistolary relationship between Hanff and the manager of a 1950s bookshop at—you guessed it—84 Charing Cross Road, its wonderful set design for the shop brought to humming life all manner of staff. As I watched, I thought to myself, there’s a whole other book in here, and immediately half a dozen characters came to mind. Here’s how I would cast the main ones:

Lord Baskin, the elegant, sympathetic earl who owns the one-hundred-year-old bookshop at the heart of Bloomsbury Girls, has to be played by Richard Armitage, who narrated the audiobook for my debut novel The Jane Austen Society, the actual writing of which he also inspired. What can I say—I’m a huge fan.

Evie Stone, the former servant girl turned literary sleuth and Cambridge graduate, is also connected to my first book, and for years now I have envisioned a shorter Saoirse Ronan in this role, given the serious, fiercely ambitious Jo March vibes from her performance in Little Women.

For Vivien, the insolent ringleader of the discontented female staff, I can only see Charlotte Spencer, the amazing actress currently playing Lady Esther Babbington in Masterpiece Theatre’s Sanditon. She has all of Vivien’s sass, impatience and ultra-cool demeanour.

Alec McDonough, the lean, blond, handsome head of fiction and competitive foil (and maybe something more) to Vivien, would ideally be played by Tom Hiddleston. As I wrote, I could actually picture Hiddleston sliding along on the rolling bookshop ladder, blond angelic head and all.

And finally, Elizabeth McGovern played Ellen Doubleday once already, in the BBC2 television drama Daphne, and I have always pictured her as the late publishing magnate’s wife and friend to Daphne du Maurier (who, with all her grand historic mystique, could only be played by herself).

Visit Natalie Jenner's website.

Q&A with Natalie Jenner.

My Book, The Movie: The Jane Austen Society.

--Marshal Zeringue

Bonnar Spring's "Disappeared"

Bonnar Spring writes eclectic and stylish mystery-suspense novels with an international flavor. A nomad at heart, she hitchhiked across Europe at sixteen and joined the Peace Corps after college. Bonnar taught ESL—English as a Second Language—at a community college for many years. She currently divides her time between tiny houses on a New Hampshire salt marsh and by the Sea of Abaco.

Here Spring dreamcasts an adaptation of her new novel, Disappeared:

If I have any say in the matter, when Disappeared becomes a film, the #1 thing I’d insist on is filming in Morocco. The novel begins in Ouarzazate, a small city which happens to be just down the road from Atlas Studios, one of the world’s largest film studios. If you’ve seen Black Hawk Down, Kingdom of Heaven, Babel, The Mummy (1999 version), Star Wars, Martin Scorsese’s Kundun, or Ridley Scott’s epic Gladiator, you’ve seen the area.

Also near the studio is Ait Benhaddou, a United Nations World Heritage site where the first scene in Disappeared takes place. This part of Morocco is on an arid plain at the edge of the Sahara Desert, where the sisters really begin to get into trouble. Throughout the novel, the setting—stony desert, blowing sand dunes, Roman ruins, ancient petroglyphs—is integral to the action, and all of those locations are within a day’s drive of Atlas Studios.

Sisters Fay Ohana and Julie Welch are the two main characters.

Julie, the older sister, is short with wispy dark hair. Her only concession to femininity is wearing bright red lipstick. She has the angular features of a young Audrey Hepburn. These days, either Lily Collins or Rooney Mara would be excellent in the role.

Where Julie is a boyish brunette, Fay is blond and voluptuous—a dead ringer for Katherine Heigl in her Grey’s Anatomy days.

I always imagined Yasmin, Fay’s mother-in-law, as having the angular cheekbones—and elegant stoicism—of Vanessa Redgrave.

Yasmin’s daughter, Nadia, is the character who has the greatest physical change during the course of the book. If a production company could persuade Salma Hayek to look unkempt and gaunt for the first half of the film, she would be my first choice.

And her gutsy son, Hamid, should be played by Pierce Gagnon—when he was five, playing Cid in Looper.

It’s not just hair and body type, though. As Lady Gaga will tell you, repeatedly, in different and ever-more theatrical ways, acting is “not an imitation, it’s a becoming.” All these actors (again, with the caveat that a director could get Salma to look emaciated) have the personality and talent to become my characters.

Visit Bonnar Spring's website.

Q&A with Bonnar Spring.

The Page 69 Test: Disappeared.

--Marshal Zeringue

Karen Winn's "Our Little World"

Karen Winn received her MFA from Fairleigh Dickinson University. She also holds a doctoral degree in nursing. Born and raised in New Jersey, she now lives in Boston with her husband and two children.

Here Winn dreamcasts an adaptation of her new novel, Our Little World:

Set in the 1980s in a small and idyllic New Jersey town, Our Little World is a lyrical coming of age novel with a looming mystery about two sisters with a relationship equal parts love and envy, whose lives are suddenly and irrevocably changed by a neighborhood girl’s disappearance.

When Max and his little sister Sally move in across the street, soon-to-be seventh grader Bee and her sister Audrina are excited that their circle of local friends has expanded. But what begins as a usual fun-filled summer—playing kickball in their cul-de-sac and swimming at the local haunts—quickly goes awry when Sally goes missing at the town lake. In the aftermath, Bee and Audrina’s little world cracks, both inside the home, as secrets, guilt, and jealousy come between them, and outside of it, as the illusion of stability in their close-knit community is shattered.

This novel is full of 80s nostalgia and has a dark underbelly. It’s about complex sibling and family relationships, and small-town dynamics. The tone of the movie would be in the vein of Stand by Me, or the HBO limited series Mare of Easttown.

Here’s my dream cast of actors (from various stages in their careers):

Twelve-year-old Bee would be played by a young Christina Ricci (from the eras of The Addams Family or The Ice Storm).

The adult version of Bee would be played by Maggie Gyllenhaal.

Audrina, Bee’s eleven-year-old sister, would be played by a young Emma Roberts, from Unfabulous era.

Little Sally Baker, the four-year-old who goes missing at the lake, would be played by a young Drew Barrymore, from E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.

Max Baker—Sally’s brother and Bee’s crush—would be played by a young Jonathan Taylor Thomas (Randy Taylor on Home Improvement).

Bee and Audrina’s mother would be played by Sally Field (Mrs. Doubtfire era), and their father would be played by Dan Lauria (Jack Arnold from The Wonder Years).

Mrs. Baker would be played by Kathy Bates (Misery era), and Dr. Baker by Hugh Laurie (from House).

Diane would be played by a young Lindsay Lohan (Freaky Friday era), and Courtney by a young Hilary Duff (from Lizzie McGuire).

The Wiley brothers (Patrick and Andrew) would be played, respectively, by a young Kiernan Culkin from the era of Cider House Rules and his real-life brother, a young Rory Culkin from the movie Lymelife.

Visit Karen Winn's website.

The Page 69 Test: Our Little World.

--Marshal Zeringue

Aaron Angello's "The Fact of Memory"

Aaron Angello is a poet, playwright, and essayist from the Rocky Mountains who lives and feels remarkably out of place in the charming, but very Eastern, town of Frederick, Maryland. He received his MFA and PhD from the University of Colorado Boulder, and he currently teaches writing and theater at Hood College.

Here Angello dreamcasts an adaptation of his new book, The Fact of Memory: 114 Ruminations and Fabrications:

If someone had unlimited financial resources and wanted to make The Fact of Memory: 144 Ruminations and Fabrications into a film, they would 1) find it nearly impossible and 2) end up making either the best or worst film ever. The book is a series of 114 brief lyric essays, prose poems, and flash fictions, each a response to one word from Shakespeare’s 29th sonnet. I can imagine a film that consists of 114 very short, unique films, and that does seem cool – kind of like a much more frenetic version of Thirty-Two Short Films about Glenn Gould. On the other hand, the individual pieces that make up the book, when taken together, do form a kind of long lyric essay or lyric autobiography. The way the pieces work together to create a kind of cohesive (though certainly nonlinear) narrative surprised even me. It is, as someone much smarter than me has said of it, “a Gen X coming of age of sorts.”

So, the challenge in making this film would be in casting the “I” (which is, very clearly, me) at different points in his life. Though one might be inclined to look for similar characteristics in each of the actors who play “I” at different ages, I would encourage the director and his casting staff to look for characteristics that embody “I” at those different times, even if they’re inconsistent.

“I” age 3, running up on the stage at the Elks Club where his father is playing 50s rock and roll (page 92): Jeff Cohen, the kid who played Chunk in The Goonies, but we would need to cast him as a child. I’m not sure how we do that.

“I” age 6, sifting through the rubble of a burned-down grocery store in the small mountain town of Cripple Creek (page 99): One of the twins from The Shining. They need to wear the blue dress as well.

“I” age 8, riding in a car through the mountains, collecting a pet cloud (page 21): Haley Joel Osment at the time he made The Sixth Sense. Again, we need to cast him as a child.

“I” age 19, in college, becoming aware of his doppelganger (page 41): Finn Wolfhard, because he’s made a career playing the kid in nostalgic films set in the 90s, and I think if he was attached to the project, we’d be able to secure funding.

“I” age 23, smoking Parliaments and drinking cheap Chianti on a rooftop in the East Village with his (pseudo)bohemian, artist friends, discussing how important they are (page 101): Ethan Hawke when he played Jesse in Before Sunrise. In fact, I can’t think of a more accurate representation of “I” at this point in his life than Hawke in this film. Anytime I think of “I” at this point in his life, I picture Ethan Hawke sitting on the grass drinking wine and talking with Julie Delpy. In my memory, I have turned “I” and Ethan Hawke into one.

“I” age 28, lonely, angry, living with a friend (who would be played by a young Al Pacino) in Santa Fe, drinking at cowboy bars and wandering through graveyards at night (page 94): Toshirô Mifune, when he did Rashomon, but dressed in ripped jeans and a motorcycle jacket.

“I” at 33, living with his first wife in an apartment above a garage in Venice Beach, listening to couples having sex across the alleyway (page 84): Florence Pugh. She’s a little young for the role, but I think we could age her up. She can perfectly express a sense of youthful wonder and possibility while also allowing the audience some brief glimpses of the emotional chaos that was lurking just around the proverbial corner.

“I” age 38, at his twentieth high school reunion (page 102): Andrew Scott, just because he’s one of our greatest living actors, and he’d really class up this picture.

“I” at the time of writing the book: Paul Giamatti. I don’t know why. I just really relate to that guy.

Visit Aaron Angello's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Fact of Memory.

Writers Read: Aaron Angello.

--Marshal Zeringue

Taylor Brown's "Wingwalkers"

Taylor Brown grew up on the Georgia coast. He has lived in Buenos Aires, San Francisco, and the mountains of western North Carolina. His books include In the Season of Blood and Gold (2014), Fallen Land (2016), The River of Kings (2017), Gods of Howl Mountain (2018), Pride of Eden (2020), and Wingwalkers (2022). You can find his work in The New York Times, The Rumpus, Garden & Gun, the North Carolina Literary Review, and many other publications. He is a recipient of the Montana Prize in Fiction and the founder of BikeBound.com. He lives in Savannah, GA.

Here Brown dreamcasts an adaptation of Wingwalkers:

I tend to have what seems like a cinematic imagination, in that I often "watch" my stories unfold as I write them, as if I'm watching a film. In my opinion, Wingwalkers would make a great movie. It follows the story of a husband-wife barnstorming duo, wingwalker Della the Daring and her former WWI ace husband, Zeno Marigold, as they attempt to coax their aging biplane across America during the Great Depression, living quite literally on a wing and a prayer. Their story alternates with that of none other than William Faulkner, following the legendary novelist and thwarted fighter pilot as he comes up in the world, both in terms of his work and flying pursuits.

I think actor Tom Hardy would make a perfect Zeno. He's burly and swarthy, like Zeno, and he can exude a physical menace that speaks to the violence and trauma that hovers beneath the surface of Zeno's charismatic exterior. Also, Lawless showed us that Hardy can do a Southern-ish accent. As for Della, I think Jessica Chastain would be a dead ringer. Not only does she have red hair and a statuesque look like Della, but she plays tough female characters so well -- and she can do a Southern accent, too, as we learned in The Help!

Now, who would play Faulkner? Oh, that's a much tougher question. Of course, there would have to be multiple actors, as the book starts when Faulkner is just 10-11 years old, and ends when he's not quite 40, but let's focus on him as an adult. There remains a boyishness to Faulkner, which I think Ryan Gosling could play well, but to me, getting Faulkner's voice right would be important, and I don't think Canada-born Gosling could handle that big, soft, long-drawled Mississippi accent. Texas-born Tye Sheridan comes to mind -- I loved him in Mud, and he's getting old enough now to play this role. But neither seem ideal. Honestly, I'd need to keep thinking on this one...

For directors, my top three dream directors would be Jeff Nichols (Mud, Shotgun Stories, Midnight Special), the Coen Brothers, or another one of my very favorites, Terrence Malick (Badlands, Days of Heaven). It's funny to think how different each film would turn out!

Visit Taylor Brown's website.

My Book, The Movie: The River of Kings.

My Book, The Movie: Pride of Eden.

Q&A with Taylor Brown.

--Marshal Zeringue

Philip Gray's "Two Storm Wood"

Philip Gray studied modern history at Cambridge University, and went on to work as a journalist in Madrid, Rome and Lisbon. He has tutored in crime writing at City University in London and serves as a director at an award-winning documentary film company, specialising in science and history.

Gray's grandfather was a captain in the Lancashire Fusiliers and fought through the First World War from start to finish, losing his closest friends along the way. Years after his death, Gray came across a cache of trench maps and military documents that his grandfather had kept, and in which he had recorded the events that befell his unit. Gray was inspired to write his thriller Two Storm Wood when the pull of his grandfather's legacy felt too strong to ignore.

Here the author dreamcasts an adaptation of the new novel:

Two Storm Wood is a period thriller largely set on the dangerous and desolate wastelands of the Western Front, just a few months after the end of World War 1. A young Englishwoman, Amy Vanneck, defying her family and social convention, sets off from England to discover the fate of her fiancé, Edward Haslam, who vanished at the front during the final summer of the war. Amy’s search leads her to Captain James Mackenzie, who commands one of the many volunteer labour companies tasked with searching the old battlefields for the missing dead – who number in the hundreds of thousands. Mackenzie’s men have discovered the aftermath of an atrocity in a dugout below the old German lines, a matter now under investigation by the War Office in the shape of a disfigured military policeman, Major John Westbrook. Both Amy and Mackenzie find themselves drawn into the hunt for a psychopath, one for whom the horror at Two Storm Wood is not an end, but a beginning.

Amy Vanneck (pronounced Van Eck) is a rebel child from a privileged, but suffocating family. A woman traumatised by guilt and loss, she exhibits extraordinary courage and determination in the face of almost universal disapproval, atrocious conditions and increasing danger – all in the name of love. For this role, my ideal choice would be Daisy Ridley, most recently of Star Wars fame.

Amy’s beloved is Captain Edward Haslam. Edward, a choir master with pacifist principles, goes to war rather than split Amy from her family. There he discovers a disquieting talent for close-quarter combat (with the aid of the narcotics, upon which he becomes increasingly dependent). It is a skill which he employs on trench raids at terrible psychological cost. The actor for this role must be convincing both as an idealistic lover and a pitiless man of action. A good choice might be Joe Alwyn, who recently played the nasty husband in The Last Letter from Your Lover.

In France, Amy’s main ally is Capt James Mackenzie, another prisoner of the battlefields, desperate to do right by the dead. For this role, my ideal would be one of Scotland’s finest, Jack Lowden.

One of Mackenzie’s sergeants is an old comrade of Edward Haslam’s, a boyish but quietly fanatical soldier who begins to take an unhealthy interest in Amy’s search. For this I would pick the versatile Bill Milner.

Last, but not least, is the all-important role of Major Westbrook. Disfigured and psychologically imploding, he still manages to exude competence, authority and no small degree of charisma. His are the deepest, darkest secrets in the story, and nobody could manage this hugely demanding role better than our very own Benedict Cumberbatch. BC quite recently donned WW1 khaki for Sam Mendes’s 1917, in which he played a small, but significant role. But this would be a greater challenge altogether.

As for a director, I would go for Andrew Haigh, who recently directed the intense and gripping period drama The North Water. In that series he used an extreme environment to great effect, which would come in very useful in any adaptation of Two Storm Wood.

Visit Philip Gray's website.

Q&A with Philip Gray.

--Marshal Zeringue

Erica Ferencik's "Girl in Ice"

Erica Ferencik is the award-winning author of the acclaimed thrillers The River at Night, Into the Jungle, and Girl in Ice, which The New York Times Book Review declared “hauntingly beautiful.”

Here Ferencik dreamcasts an adaptation of Girl in Ice:

If they make my book into a film, here's who I'd like to play the lead role(s).

Director: Joe Carnahan who directed Liam Neesen in The Grey.

In Girl in Ice, Val Chesterfield, a 41-year-old American linguist, is tasked to go to a remote climate research center on an island off the coast of Greenland, where a young girl has thawed from a glacier – alive – speaking a language no one understands. Eight months before the story begins, Val’s twin brother, Andy, a climate researcher stationed at the remote outpost, walked out into a 50 degree below zero polar night, freezing to death. Andy was troubled, but Val has her doubts that he took his own life, and suspects foul play.

The story begins when Wyatt, the head researcher at this remote station, sends Val an email begging her to come to Greenland to try to interpret the girl’s speech. Val, who’s battling her own issues, including a severe anxiety disorder that confines her to only a few “safe” locations, is ready to dismiss the email, but instead, plays a clip of the girl’s speech Wyatt has included in his message. Val doesn’t understand a word the girl says, but she hears trauma and terror in her voice, so Val decides to voyage to Greenland to try to help this child, as well as attempt to solve the mystery of her brother’s death.

Characters:

Val Chesterfield: American linguist, 41, has a severe anxiety disorder, tasked to go to Greenland to try to communicate with a young girl who has thawed from a glacier alive speaking a language no one understands — Jessica Chastain, Amy Adams, Nicole Kidman.

Wyatt Speeks: lead climate researcher at the Greenland station, 61, determined to find out the girl’s secret to thawing out alive, no matter the cost — Christian Bale, Robert De Niro, Hugh Jackman, Joaquin Phoenix, Liam Neesen, Willem Dafoe, Christoph Waltz, Tim Roth.

Andy Chesterfield, Val’s twin brother, charismatic but disturbed, climate researcher — Edward Norton, Cillian Murphy.

Jeanne: mechanic and cook at the research station, late 50’s, tortured by her past as well as her present obsessions — Kate Winslet.

Nora, marine researcher, 30’s, married to Raj — Marion Cotillard.

Raj, marine researcher, 30’s, married to Nora — Naveen Andrews, Aziz Ansari.

Dr. Chesterfield, Val’s father, 91, in a nursing home, getting weaker but determined to find out what happened to his son — Anthony Hopkins.

Sigrid: the 7/8-year old-girl who has thawed from the glacier: unfortunately, I don't know any child actors.

Visit Erica Ferencik's website.

Q&A with Erica Ferencik.

The Page 69 Test: Girl in Ice.

--Marshal Zeringue

Diana Abu-Jaber's "Fencing with the King"

Diana Abu-Jaber is the award-winning author of several books of fiction and nonfiction, including Crescent and The Language of Baklava.

Here she dreamcasts an adaptation of her new novel, Fencing With the King:

Of all my books, I think Fencing With the King might be the most “cinematic,” in the sense that there’s a lot of action, adventure, and a dramatic, even flamboyant, reliance on the Middle Eastern settings.

The story follows Amani, an American writer, as she accompanies her father, Gabe, to a duel with the King of Jordan. Amani has a secret letter from a grandmother she never knew and she is on a mission to learn what’s kept her father away from his homeland for 35 years.

I think Gabe needs to be someone who seems kind, easy-going and down to earth, and yet maybe a little bit exhausted by life. He should also give off a hint of romance and excitement – like Antonio Banderas or George Clooney—and preferably an Arab-American: Tony Shalhoub would be perfection.

I’d also love to see an Arab-American in the role of Amani – someone striking, graceful, yet smart and vulnerable. Since we’re dreaming let’s give that role to Shakira! Or Selena Gomez for a multi-culti spin.

Learn more about the writer and her work at Diana Abu-Jaber's website.

The Page 99 Test: Origin.

The Page 69 Test: Fencing with the King.

Q&A with Diana Abu-Jaber.

--Marshal Zeringue