Holly Schindler's "Spark"

Holly Schindler is a hybrid author of critically acclaimed traditionally published and Amazon bestselling independently published works for readers of all ages. Her previous YAs (A Blue So Dark, Playing Hurt, and Feral) have received starred reviews from Booklist and Publishers Weekly, won silver and gold medals from ForeWord Reviews Book of the Year and the IPPY Awards, respectively, been featured on Booklist’s First Novels for Youth, School Library Journal’s “What’s Hot in YA,” and been selected as a PW Pick. Kirkus praised her latest YA, Spark, for “crisp prose [that] flows easily between the past and present,” and Booklist claimed the novel casts “a shimmering spell.”

Here Schindler shares some guidance for casting an adaptation of Spark:

Spark is about the magic of the theater. More specifically, it’s about the magic of losing yourself in the theater. We’ve all had that experience—being able to lean back into a seat in the audience and completely forget ourselves for a couple of hours. It’s pure escapism. But if you’re on the stage, you don’t just get to forget yourself, you actually get to become someone else—step into another character’s skin.

Two of the main characters in Spark get a chance to shed their perceived flaws when they step onto the stage. That’s part of the magic that lives inside that old Avery Theater. And by losing those “flaws,” by shedding the things they believe are holding them back, those two characters also get a chance at finding love.

Casting Spark, then, would require getting some non-household names. I think it’s far easier to blur the lines between fact and fiction, completely escape into another world, when you don’t know the actors’ real-life names.

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My Book, The Movie: Feral.

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--Marshal Zeringue

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