Angi Black's adult contemporary LIFE AFTER DEATH would have an indie film lover's dream cast.
The pitch: "Sometimes losing it all is the only way to learn how to live. Marine widow, Casey, and Mark, the single father of a four-day old, begin a friendship, not just with each other, but with the lives they thought had passed them by."
The Cast: Mark LeBlanc - played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
Angi says, "He has the innocent charm needed to follow through with such a heavy plot. He also has the gravitas to hold the darker scenes. "
Casey Barnes - played by Sarah Michelle Gellar.
"She has the ability to wear the "everything is fine" face while letting you see she's really falling apart. Plus I think these two would have beautiful chemistry, says Angi, who has
thought about this so much she already has a Pinterest board devoted to it.
And Jessica Brooks has a board for her dream cast, too, for the future film version of her contemporary YA romance PITY ISN"T AN OPTION.
The pitch: "Seventeen year-old Jonas' blood disorder has taken away everything that matters. Sixteen year-old Hattie's father is losing his marbles. When Jonas' perfectly healthy twin brother and Hattie's crazy dad are drafted into the President's army, Hattie's dad disappears. Jonas and Hattie embark on a journey to find him, and find something they'd lost long ago in the process."
The cast: Hattie Akerman: Kaya Scodelario
Jonas Norton: John Patrick Amedori
Heath Akerman: Jeffry Dean Morgan
Lucy Akerman: Elle Fanning
Lanelle Akerman: Elizabeth Shue
Elise Norton: Sela Ward
Beck Norton: Andy Garcia
If you want a little horror with your romance, buy a ticket to Adrianne James' The Enlightening
The pitch: "Mackenzie Duncan found out that pack life wasn’t for her. Now she is running for the second time in the six months since she was bitten and turned into a Werewolf. But this time, she isn’t alone. This time, she has Geoff and Liam with her, two very hot Werewolves vying for her heart. But her companions aren't her focus. The only thing she can focus on is getting far from her old pack and their murderous ways. Only, she doesn’t just want to run. She wants to warn every pack she can that their lives are in danger too. No one should be turned against their will like she was and no other pack should have to surrender to the ideas of a centuries old, power hungry woman. Not only does Mackenzie have to deal with her crazy ex-pack leader sending people out to kill her, she has to keep both men at arm’s length (and that proves to be much more difficult than she thought), but she finds out more about her own life and heritage than she ever thought imaginable. And suddenly, everything makes sense..."
The cast: Mia Mitchell as MacKenzie
Taylor Kitch as Geoff 
Xavier Samuels as Liam
and Joe Manigianello as Darren 
That is one smokin' hot cast, Adrianne!
Rachel Blalock Bateman has already pondered this question so much in regard to her YA contemporary 99 Days of Laney Maguire that she had a nifty graphic ready-made for me!
The pitch: "Laney can’t wait to spend the summer at her father’s lake resort. It’s a place where time stands still and nothing ever changes—the perfect thing for Laney after the year she just had. But when she gets there, she discovers the lodge isn’t quite as unchanging as she once thought.
Some of the differences are good, like Rory’s new look; some are bad, like whatever secret Karissa is keeping. And then some things are just confusing, like Weston.
Weston, her mysterious new co-worker, who is the cause of so many of the changes Laney hates. She wants to despise him, but she can’t deny the attraction she feels, nor the desire she has to be around the one person who didn’t know her before the summer—the one person she doesn’t have to pretend for.
The cast:
Weston: Jamie Cambell Bower
Craig: Craig Sheffer
Karissa: Jenna Ushkowitz
Derek: Denzel Whitaker
Rory: Robbie Sheehan
Angie: Alex Rice
I failed at the challenge myself when it came to casting Snark and Circumstance, but I came up with an interesting cast for my work-in-progress, A TIME OF SHADOWS, as long as I am allowed to play with the elements of time and space. (My game, my rules).
The Pitch: A 400-year-old witch trapped forever in the body of a seventeen-year-old, Becca MacCracken thinks she's seen it all. But could the cute boy in her history class really be the reincarnation of the man who tried to save her from the Burning Times? And is that chemistry teacher really her nemesis, the dark magus Count Giancarlo Montoni? Witch hunts, religious fanaticism, and theoretical physics: The Crucible meets a YA The Tudors meets The Big Bang Theory.
The cast: I realized a little while ago that the girl I had in my head as Becca looks a lot like Nicole Fox from America's Next Top Model.
I have no idea if she can act, but she has an awkward sort of grace that works and a sort of sadness that fits a girl who is not what she seems. Plus, her last name is FOX, which will mean something to others if I ever finish the darn thing. Her former fiance/present-day erstwhile boyfriend, Jack, looks like a young Ewan McGregor
(fitting since they are both boyish Scots).So I'm traveling back in time to get vintage Ewan for the role. Her best friend Lilly Preston should be played by Evonna Lynch , who's been around magic before as Luna Lovegood in the Harry Potter movies 
and Lily has a secret crush on Kai, a physics nerd and martial arts expert who's a younger, dorkier Godfrey Gao 
I have a Pinterest board here for the work in progress. Now I just have to write the thing!
If you're out there, Hollywood agents, we're ready for you. And of course this casting session has been an exercise in pure wish fulfillment. None of these books are being made into films and NONE of these actors are in any way affiliated with us or any of our projects. As writers, we just have really vivid fantasy lives.
- Stephanie Wardrop, author of the YA e-novella series updating Pride and Prejudice called Snark and Circumstance, Swoon Romance, 2013-14
