Vanessa Veselka's "Zazen," the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: Zazen by Vanessa Veselka.

The entry begins:

People have often told me that Zazen would make great as a movie or a graphic novel so when asked to do My Book, The Movie I thought, great, now I can playfully fill the world I created with actual human actors! Unfortunately it turns out I am missing the chip needed to cast my own novel. In layman’s terms, I got nothing. I can only compare it to a blank spot on an erotic map. Like when someone says, hey are you into hot schoolgirl action? and instead of a meter reading you get a color test screen. So to hide my failure, I got my friend Charlotte to cast Zazen. Here’s what Charlotte said:

“As producer—“

Producer?

“We need to look at directors…maybe Bigelow, Joss Whedon...”

I'd been thinking along the lines of Francis Ford Coppola’s first chick-flick because, after all, he already knows how to set things on fire and psychedelically butcher an ox.

But Charlotte wasn't listening to me.

According to Charlotte we needed a strong ensemble cast that would please both the arthouse crowd and the money people. Money people?

She was digging in and what emerged was a brilliant combination of indy character actors and glitzy Hollywood. For Credence and Della she wanted something in the way of Billy Crudup and Noomi Rapace. But since they would be too obvious, she chose...[read on]

Learn more about the book and author at Vanessa Veselka's blog.

Vanessa Veselka is a writer and musician living in Portland, Oregon. She has been, at various times, a teenage runaway, a sex-worker, a union organizer, a student of paleontology, an expatriate, an independent record label owner, a train-hopper, a waitress, and a mother. Her work has appeared in Bust, Bitch, Maxmum Rock ’n’ Roll, Yeti Magazine and Tin House.

My Book, The Movie: Zazen.

--Marshal Zeringue