Anne Clinard Barnhill's "Queen Elizabeth's Daughter"

Anne Clinard Barnhill has been writing or dreaming of writing for most of her life. For the past twenty years, she has published articles, book and theater reviews, poetry, and short stories. Her first book, At Home in the Land of Oz, recalls what it was like growing up with an autistic sister. Her work has won various awards and grants. Barnhill holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington.

Here she dreamcasts an adaptation of her latest novel, Queen Elizabeth's Daughter:

In Queen Elizabeth's Daughter, there is no question about who should play Elizabeth Tudor. Cate Blanchett has already proven she understands the complexity of the queen in two movies, Elizabeth and Elizabeth, The Golden Age. She has the skill to expose the many layers that make up the woman for whom an age is named, and could easily handle the tender and sometimes brutal scenes required.

As her royal ward and ‘daughter,’ Mary Shelton, Emma Watson, of Hermione fame can skillfully portray a spirited, intelligent young woman who must eventually make a decision that will change her life, perhaps even end her life.

As Mary’s love interest, Sir John Scudamore, the handsome Henry Cavill would do nicely. For history lovers, he will be remembered as Charles Branson from the series, The Tudors. For others, he will be recalled as the most recent incarnation of Superman. He can convey the passion and romance called for in Queen Elizabeth's Daughter.

And, for Robert Dudley, the patient wooer for Elizabeth and her one true love, Clive Owen, who has played against Blanchett previously in Elizabeth, The Golden Age as Sir Walter Raleigh, made sparks fly then. I believe those two could light up the screen now.

All would be directed by John Madden, who has proven his knowledge and understanding of Elizabethan London in the great film, Shakespeare in Love.

Visit Anne Clinard Barnhill's website.

The Page 69 Test: Queen Elizabeth's Daughter.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ben Tarnoff's "The Bohemians"

Ben Tarnoff has written for the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and Lapham’s Quarterly, and is the author of A Counterfeiter’s Paradise: The Wicked Lives and Surprising Adventures of Three Early American Moneymakers.

Here Tarnoff dreamcasts an adaptation of his new book, The Bohemians: Mark Twain and the San Francisco Writers Who Reinvented American Literature:

A lot of actors have played Mark Twain over the years. Hal Holbrook might be the best known, but Val Kilmer has also suited up for the role. There’s also that time-traveling episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation when Twain helps rescue Captain Picard.

These Twains are invariably the Twain of popular imagination: the man in the white suit, with the electric shock of white hair, chomping on a cigar, dispensing witty one-liners. This was Twain in his later years, when he was a national icon and an international celebrity, and his best work was behind him. My book focuses on the younger Twain, when he was just embarking on his literary career, and he hadn’t yet learned how to conceal his tumultuous inner life under a genial grandfatherly façade. Twain in his twenties and early thirties was tormented by depression, mania, professional uncertainty, financial fears. He was an extremist, prone to excesses of all kinds and terrifying flights of rage.

I’d give the part to Matthew McConaughey, who’s proven his high-Method chops with True Detective and Dallas Buyers Club, and could bring an appropriate degree of demonic intensity to the role. I also think he could nail Twain’s voice, which was infused with a peculiar droning, drawling, drunken twang.

My book’s other characters might be a bit harder to cast. Bret Harte was dandyish, aloof, and sarcastic. He emerged from San Francisco’s literary scene of the 1860s to become America’s most famous writer for a brief period before completely self-destructing, and spent the rest of his life in relative obscurity and poverty. I could see Robert Downey, Jr having fun with it.

Charles Warren Stoddard had great spiritual depth and little practical sense. He always had an air of boyishness about him—a permanent child, even into middle age. Michael Cera? Elijah Wood?

Ina Coolbrith might require the most nuanced performance. She was a very specific mix: stubborn, solicitous, self-pitying, irreverent. I’d nominate Tilda Swinton, who’s one of my all-time favorites.

I hope the movie studios are listening.

View the trailer for The Bohemians, and visit Ben Tarnoff's website.

Writers Read: Ben Tarnoff.

The Page 99 Test: The Bohemians.

--Marshal Zeringue

Jill Kelly's "Fog of Dead Souls"

Jill Kelly is a writer, visual artist, creativity coach, and freelance editor. A long-time college professor of literature, she has been writing and publishing since 2002. Her memoir, Sober Truths: The Making of an Honest Woman, was a finalist for the prestigious Oregon Book Award.

Here Kelly dreamcasts an adaptation of Fog of Dead Souls, her second novel and first thriller:

About halfway through the writing of Fog, I knew I had a great movie as well as a great read in the making. Why? Because I was writing about three substantial characters in their 60s—a female college professor, a male detective, and a cowboy—and there are a number of terrific older actors who are making great movies and original series for TV.

Ellie McKay is a professor of French whose surgeon boyfriend is murdered in their hotel room on a weekend trip to Gettysburg. Already struggling with alcoholism, Ellie gets tipped over the edge by the violence she experiences. The incomparable Meryl Streep has the versatility to play this role. She could brilliantly do the wounded and the brazen sides of Ellie that we come to see. However, I’d be more inclined to beg Debra Winger to come out of retirement and play this role. She does savvy yet naïve with such dazzling nuance that I’d love to see her be Ellie on the screen.

Al Robison is the rancher with a dark past who proposes to Ellie 30 minutes after he meets her in the Maverick Bar in Farmington, New Mexico. Sam Shepard is one of my favorite cowboy actors but he doesn’t have the body type I need for Al. Then again, not many actors are 6’4” with thick white hair. Robert Redford of 10 years ago would be great. In fact, he might still be great. We could also cast Morgan Freeman in this role. He definitely has something Al-like about him. And there’s always Clint Eastwood.

Doug Hansen, the detective in love with Ellie, is patterned after the husband of a good friend of mine. Sadly, the real Doug Hansen is a painter, not an actor, so I don’t think he’d bring a lot of clout to the box office. So I’d go with Kevin Spacey. He can do the sad, worn-down-by-life aspect of the detective with ease and he also has the intensity to pull off Hansen’s passion for solving the crimes. I very much like the idea of Kevin and Debra together. Of course, you’ll have to read the book to see if they end up together.

There are some great minor roles in this book as well: the knowledgeable Detective Capriano with his penchant for good food, the slimy Arlen Gerstead, the surgeon boyfriend, Al’s angry ex-girlfriend, the female shaman, and of course the killer himself.

I’m hoping Hollywood will be knocking on my door at any moment. I’m also hoping that you’ll read my book and let me know what you think.

Visit Jill Kelly's website.

The Page 69 Test: Fog of Dead Souls.

--Marshal Zeringue

Daniel Sutherland's "Whistler: A Life for Art's Sake"

Daniel E. Sutherland is Distinguished Professor of History, University of Arkansas. The recipient of more than fifty awards, honors, and grants, he is best known for his acclaimed series of books chronicling nineteenth-century America.

Here Sutherland dreamcasts an adaptation of his latest book, Whistler: A Life for Art's Sake:

Actually, it is not pure speculation on my part to consider the lead roles in a movie biography of James Whistler. I was a consultant for the script and will appear as one of several “talking heads” in a film documentary about the artist, James McNeill Whistler and the Case for Beauty, to be broadcast on PBS this fall (probably September). Our producer was lucky enough to snag Angelica Huston as narrator and Kevin Kline as the voice of Whistler. (Vanessa Redgrave was to have supplied the voice of Anna Whistler, his mother, but had to bow out for contractual reasons). As for Kline, he will not appear on screen, and is now a bit long in the tooth to play the young Whistler, but I think he would still be perfect as an aging Whistler (he is now 66 years old, Whistler died at age 69).

So who to play the young and middle-age artist? No one else but Johnny Depp. Although himself 50, Depp still possesses a youthfulness that would allow him to look twenty or thirty, which is when Whistler first rose to fame. I did not write my book with Depp in mind—or anyone else for that matter—but he could easily project the devil-may-care swagger of a Victorian dandy that Whistler perfected (minus the inebriated swaying and slurred speech of Captain Jack Sparrow). The shape of Depp’s face also fits Whistler, so that with the addition of a mustache and tuff of hair beneath his lower lip, he would provide a very passable likeness. He is a bit taller than Whistler (5’10” to the more diminutive “Jimmy,” at 5’3”), but he has the same slender, athletic build. Most important would be Depp’s attitude. He has the soul of a bohemian, as did Whistler. He is a musician and, as I understand it, likes to paint and collects art. He would appreciate the artistic drive for perfection in Whistler, and be able to convey that persona on screen in a dynamically sensitive way. Depp seems to share Whistler’s innate feeling for art and his passion for “creating beautiful things.”

As for others in my cast, the next most important roles would be the women in Whistler’s life, most importantly his mother Anna, but also two of his mistress-models and his wife. His small, delicate mother would have to be played by someone like Sally Fields, who did an admirable job as Mary Todd Lincoln in Lincoln. Whistler’s first important model, a redheaded Irish girl named Joanna Hiffernan, could be portrayed wonderfully by Nicole Kidman, a redheaded Australian, but she may be too far on the wrong side of twenty. Keira Knightley is probably a better bet. His next most important model, Maud Franklin, was not as conventionally lovely as Jo, and might be captured very nicely by Hilary Swank. Finally Julianne Moore would be perfect for Whistler’s eventual wife, whom he did not marry until in his mid-fifties. Lights! Camera! Action!

Visit Daniel Sutherland's faculty webpage, and learn more about Whistler: A Life for Art's Sake at the Yale University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Whistler: A Life for Art's Sake.

--Marshal Zeringue

Jane Nickerson's "The Mirk and Midnight Hour"

For many years Jane Nickerson and her family lived in a big old house in Aberdeen, Mississippi, where she was also the children’s librarian. She has always loved the South, “the olden days,” gothic tales, houses, kids, writing, and interesting villains. After five great years living in Ontario, Canada, Nickerson and her husband have returned to Aberdeen where they live in a lovely little old house that is a television star.

Here Nickerson dreamcasts an adaptation of her new novel, The Mirk and Midnight Hour:

You know, I do believe The Mirk and Midnight Hour would make a riveting costume drama—lush Southern scenery, heartwarming bits, chilling bits, moral questions to ponder, and an opportunity for lovely clothes and an all-star cast.

At first glance, the heroine, Violet, looks like an ordinary, not pretty, not plain 1860’s seventeen-year-old Southern farmgirl, but in reality she’s extraordinary. With cleverness and resilience, she deals with all that’s thrown at her—even the climactic scene where she must save her beloved Thomas from being a voodoo sacrifice. I would choose Jennifer Lawrence to play Violet. Jennifer is pretty, but not in a flashy way, and she could handle the required physical action.

Violet’s family includes gorgeous, spoiled stepsister, Sunny (Jessica Biel when she was a teenager), her dreamy, vague, laudanum-addicted stepmother, Miss Elsa (Cate Blanchett), her sometimes annoying, sometimes endearing ten-year-old cousin, Seeley (Haley Joel Osment when he was a kid), and her cousin Dorian. Oh, Dorian is a charmer! Blonde and handsome, funny and flirtatious. A young Matthew McConaughey would play Dorian to a T, and he even does the Southern accent.

Now we need Violet’s love interest—sensitive, intelligent, kind Lt. Thomas Lynd, who wrote Seeley’s favorite adventure books before he joined the Union army. Thomas was badly wounded and kidnapped by the mysterious VanZeldts, who are caring for him for reasons known only to themselves. Casting Thomas is tougher. He’s good-looking, but not pretty-boy, and he needs to show the vulnerability of his position since he’s physically helpless throughout the story, but still have an underlying strength of character. Maybe Ben Feldman could do it.

Laney, Violet’s African American best friend, who happens to be enslaved, needs to be curvy, pretty, and show common sense and shrewdness. Possibly Adepero Oduye, if we can make her seventeen.

Two other important characters are Miss Ruby Jewel and her servant, Jubal. Miss Ruby Jewel is old and shriveled and obnoxious. The actress Gloria Stuart was beautiful in her heyday, but she can be Miss Ruby Jewel now. Jubal’s casting is obvious. Morgan Freeman all the way. Jubal is elderly and tired, but he has dignity and a complicated relationship with the awful Miss Ruby Jewel.

The last key characters are the VanZeldts. Dr. VanZeldt is an impeccably-dressed, polite, but creepy Dutchman in his 60’s, loved as a father by the rest of his household. Donald Sutherland could do it. The most important thing about the African VanZeldts is their height and their movement—gliding along with silky grace. Amenze must be tall and lovely. Lupita Nyong’o should play the part. Uwa needs to be handsome, muscular, smooth, but a little scary. He also doesn’t really need to speak, since mostly he slinks around making Violet uncomfortable, but he has to be an amazing dancer. Therefore, I would have to take upon myself the enjoyable task of looking over male dancers from the Alvin Ailey dance theater for casting.

Oh, I want to see it!

Learn more about the book and author at Jane Nickerson's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Mirk and Midnight Hour.

--Marshal Zeringue

Aaron Thier's "The Ghost Apple"

Aaron Thier's writing has appeared in The Nation, The New Republic, and The Buenos Aires Review. He is a graduate of Yale University and of the MFA program at the University of Florida.

Here Thier dreamcasts an adaptation of his debut novel, The Ghost Apple:

When people ask me what The Ghost Apple is about, my instinct is to keep silent, but this is pointless and self-defeating and it really isn’t so hard to say. It’s about a small college that sells itself to a snack food company called Big Anna. This company overthrows the college president, drugs the professors, and enslaves a group of study-abroad students on its plantations in the Caribbean. The principal characters are Bill Brees, the elderly dean of students, who goes undercover as an incoming freshman to learn what student life is really like; Maggie Bell, a student who travels to the Caribbean; John Kabaka, a history professor turned revolutionary; and William Beckford, a depraved English professor who speaks in quotations from Mussolini and becomes the college’s Big Anna-appointed dictator.

The Ghost Apple: A Hollywood Movie is a thing almost impossible to imagine, but why should that matter? The easy choice for the kind bemused loveable dean is Bill Murray, who plays every kind bemused loveable old man, and we all love him, and why shouldn’t we? But an edgier choice would be my grandfather, or yours. For Maggie, with whom the dean falls in love, we can think of no one better than Sasheer Zamata, with her cleverness and her beauty and her angry eyes. For William Beckford, of whose impressive teeth much is made in the novel, we are thinking of Bruce Dern (recently of Nebraska), whose teeth have always impressed us and who happens to play a convincing bad guy. For the part of John Kabaka we will accept no one but Usain Bolt.

And now the minor characters: John Morehead Tripoli, a shipwrecked sailor, should be played by the guy from Looking, who it turns out is named Jonathan Groff. We are very taken with this guy from Looking, with his nice little smile and his affable demeanor. The dean’s roommates should be played by Adam Driver, from Girls, and by a seventeen-year-old Peter Lorre. The smaller the part, however, the more famous the actors should be. Characters who appear only briefly should be played by Halle Berry, Anthony Hopkins, Marlon Brando, and Audrey Hepburn. Cary Grant and Ava Gardner should each appear once at the edge of the frame and neither should have any lines.

Who should direct such a movie? Ideally we would have many directors and we would pit them against one another. Michael Mann to start, who could give it a smooth stylish look, and Werner Herzog to do the long portentous metaphysically-significant pauses, and maybe also Howard Hawks, for class and quick comedic effects, and Lake Bell, whom we love. It would be good if sometimes there were different sequences playing simultaneously on different screens. It would also be good if we could have some sequences in 3D, but only some, and others in black and white. We want all of this but we’re not willing to sacrifice clarity or narrative thrust. We’re joking but we’re not joking.

Learn more about the book and author at Aaron Thier's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Ghost Apple.

--Marshal Zeringue

Elizabeth Maxwell's "Happily Ever After"

Elizabeth Maxwell lived for a long time in the east until one particularly snowy February when she couldn’t take it anymore, packed up her angry cat and moved west. She’s been hanging out in the Northern California sunshine ever since. (Well, except for a decade in San Francisco where it was foggy all the time but the restaurants were really good so there was that.) Maxwell currently lives in Davis, CA with her husband, two kids and the same angry cat (who is now 97 cat years old.)

Here she dreamcasts an adaptation of her debut novel Happily Ever After:

I see Renée Zellweger in the role of Sadie Fuller. I think this stems from Ms. Zellweger playing Bridget Jones and while writing Happily Ever After, I’d occasionally think of Sadie as the grown up American version of Bridget. And I love the idea of John Cusack in the role of Jason, Sadie’s sort of boyfriend. He does a great job with the bumbling guy who ends up being kind of cool, despite himself. Roger, Sadie’s gay ex husband, would have to be Rob Lowe.

As for Aidan Hathway, the hot young character that’s jumped out of Sadie’s latest romance, I’d go for some of the smoldering twenty somethings populating television lately, maybe Jonathan Rhys Meyers or Ian Somerhalder.

Visit Elizabeth Maxwell's website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

The Page 69 Test: Happily Ever After.

Writers Read: Elizabeth Maxwell.

--Marshal Zeringue

Sandra Parshall's "Poisoned Ground"

Sandra Parshall grew up in South Carolina and has worked as a reporter on newspapers in South Carolina, West Virginia, and Baltimore. She lives in Northern Virginia with her husband, a long-time Washington journalist, and three cats.

Here Parshall dreamcasts an adaptation of Poisoned Ground, her latest Rachel Goddard Mystery:

After six novels, my mental images of my protagonists, Rachel Goddard and Tom Bridger, are cemented in place. They’re unique individuals. What actors could possibly step into their roles and become them in a film?

This is one of the countless reasons most writers have no say in casting movies made from their books.

Readers, who form their own mental images of characters, don’t hesitate to offer suggestions. A surprising number of people have told me they see Rachel as Clare Danes. I’m not sure what accounts for that, but while I admire Ms. Danes enormously as an actress, she wouldn’t be my first choice. If she colored her hair auburn, I would be happy with Rachel McAdams. I see my own Rachel in her smile.

Tom is more of a problem because of his Melungeon — mixed race — heritage, which gives him dark olive skin, Cherokee features, and coal-black hair. I’ve never seen an actor who made me think, “That’s Tom.”

But oh, the secondary characters in Poisoned Ground — what a dream cast they inspire. From the moment I conceived the character Jake Hollinger, lumber mill owner and aging Don Juan, I’ve pictured him as Ted Danson, complete with that wonderful thick white hair. For Jake’s love interest, widow-with-a-past Tavia Richardson, Jessica Lange would be perfect. No actor could do a better job than Rob Lowe as Lawrence Archer, the slimy rep for the development company that wants to erect a sprawling resort for the rich in my little Blue Ridge Mountains community.

The real fun is in casting the Jones sisters, never married and growing old and increasingly eccentric together in the family home. Meryl Streep would be fabulous as the sharp-tongued oldest sister, Winter, whose mission in life is to keep her sisters in line. Spring, the second sister, makes no concession to age in choosing her flamboyant clothing, hair color and makeup, and Susan Sarandon could capture her perfectly. Summer, the youngest, seems shy and quiet but allows glimpses of a simmering dark streak. I want Mia Farrow in this role.

I think Poisoned Ground would make a terrific movie — it has action, it has conflict of every variety, it has more than one murder. And I’m not one of those writers who can’t bear the thought of turning filmmakers loose on their books. After all, my book won’t change; it will remain between its covers, exactly as I wrote it. So if we could get past the difficulty of finding the right actor to play Tom Bridger, I’d be happy to go along with a film project. I have a few ideas on casting the rest of the characters, too...

Learn more about the book and author at Sandra Parshall's official website.

The Page 69 Test: Disturbing the Dead.

The Page 69 Test: Poisoned Ground.

--Marshal Zeringue

Isla Morley's "Above"

Isla Morley grew up in South Africa during apartheid, the child of a British father and fourth-generation South African mother. She now lives in Los Angeles with her husband (a minister) and daughter and an assortment of animals. Her debut novel, Come Sunday, was awarded the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize for Fiction in 2009 and was a finalist for the Commonwealth Prize. It has been translated into seven languages.

Here Morley dreamcasts an adaptation of her latest novel, Above:

Annie Dillard said never to trust a novel that wanted to be a movie. “Novels with film contracts in mind have a faint but unmistakable, and ruinous, odor,” she observed in The Writing Life. I wish I’d never read that, not because she isn’t right, but because along with all the scoffing critics that already reside in my head, there is now also Annie Dillard and her Sniff Test. The first time a reader remarked that Above would make a great movie, I bit my bottom lip and tried not to glance Annie Dillard’s way. When others echoed the sentiment, I felt the need to defend myself to her: My intentions were honest. A book, I swear; not a movie!

The version of Annie Dillard who sits in the corner of my mind on a straight back chair with her Pulitzer trophy on her lap is not at all pleased with this exercise. I shouldn’t be imagining people from the Silver Screen showing up for their parts, but how easy it is to see Jennifer Lawrence as Blythe Hallowell, the abducted teen who is held deep underground in an abandoned World War II missile silo, and Sam Rockwell as the crazed survivalist who keeps her there. Lawrence has the chops to play a character whose battles are both against external forces (her kidnapper and the beastly dimensions of an almost fathomless bunker) and internal threats such as despair. She’d be at her fiercest when raising a child in captivity. Also, she’ll age well.

Having delivered a magnificent performance as an astronaut isolated for years in a lunar mining base in Moon, Rockwell would excel as the end-of-the-world prepper, Dobbs Hordin. Forest Whitaker would be a perfect counterbalance as the failed father looking for an opportunity to redeem himself.

None of these actors came to mind while I was working on the novel, but I’ll confess that when I wrote the book’s final scene, I did hear a song. Sorry, Annie, but it’s the kind of song they play when the credits start to roll. Each time I listen to Glory Bound by The Wailin’ Jennys, I am back to the rush of that moment – when there is no page, no screen either. There is only everything falling into place. There are a hundred smells that accompany such a thing, none of them ruinous.

Learn more about the book and author at Isla Morley's website.

Writers Read: Isla Morley.

The Page 69 Test: Above.

--Marshal Zeringue

Dean Crawford's "Apocalypse"

Dean Crawford worked as a graphic designer before he left the industry to pursue his lifelong dream of writing full-time. An aviation and motorcycle enthusiast, he lives with his family in Surrey, England.

His novels include Covenant, Immortal, and Apocalypse.

Here Crawford dreamcasts an adaptation of Apocalypse:

Apocalypse is a very fast-moving story, and as a thriller I think would make a fabulous film. Some of the scenes, especially those involving the virtual-replay of real-world events in a secret government facility and the captive black hole chamber would make marvellous visual entertainment. As ever, I’d love to see Hugh Jackman take on the role of Ethan Warner, with perhaps Michelle Rodriguez as Nicola Lopez. Both actors do a great job of playing believable rough-and-tumble action heroes.

Learn more about the book and author at Dean Crawford's website and blog.

The Page 69 Test: Covenant.

The Page 69 Test: Immortal.

Writers Read: Dean Crawford.

--Marshal Zeringue