Orbis Mundi -- Reading Shakespeare

Amy just told me about a great little web site that keeps track of the number of people reading "shakespeare"—Shakespeare’s Global Globe. This is so great! It would be really terrific if there was some way to contact other reading groups to share information about how everyone is reading. I've lead two reading groups for six years, plus Amy and I have the lengthy discussion group, The Understanders.

If you have a Shakespeare reading group, please let me know!

Sweet Swan in paperback?

I have an agent! A book agent. One who knows what I'm capable of and thinks it's perfectly viable to find a publisher to put Sweet Swan of Avon: Did a Woman Write Shakespeare? into paperback. Bless his heart. With the two documentaries about Mary Sidney coming out this year, it shouldn't be too difficult to sell to a publisher, I hope. Then we can start promoting it to book clubs and do a new push.

This agent is also interested in selling my book about starting your own Shakespeare reading group. I was astounded, while speaking on the Shakespeare at Sea cruise, how few people actually read Shakespeare! It's so great to read a play in a group, especially. And with things showing up like brain gyms specifically for boomers and older, it's an indication of how much people might actually enjoy learning something new in this way. If you have any experience with a Shakespeare reading group and are interested in sharing, please let me know.

And My Agent is also interested in shopping my book about the women in Shakespeare -- a fun, illustrated look at 52 women and what they accomplished. Then those books will open the doors to other projects! woo hoo! I've got a long list of projects already on my plate and can't wait to dive in.

Upcoming talks about Mary Sidney

I have several talks about Mary Sidney as author coming up.

One is at the Newberry Library in Chicago, at their Wednesday Club. This will be Wednesday, May 7, 2008. The reception begins at 5:30 and my talk at 6:15. My dear friends Jim Price and Don Newcomb, founders of the ChicaGourmet Club (the premier gourmet source in Chicago) will also be creating a dinner event while I'm there. Stay tuned for more info.

Also in May, I'll be speaking at the UCLA Affiliates Luncheon in Los Angeles. That's May 15, 11:30 to 2 p.m.

If you're in town, please drop in and say hello!

New group open for discussion

I get email regularly from people who have questions or comments about Mary Sidney as the author of the shakespearean works. So I started a Google Group to facilitate an open discussion between interested people. Please visit and add your thoughts!

The address is http://groups.google.com/group/MarySidney.

The only rule about posting questions or comments is that you have to be nice! Even though other authorship groups, including shakespeareans, say really mean things to each other, we're not going to do that. We're the nice ones. :-)

Shakespeare at Sea 2008

Wow—I just got word that I was invited back by the Ashland Oregon Shakespeare Festival to speak on the next Shakespeare at Sea cruise, November 2008. Judging from the line-up of speakers, I am the only one from the previous cruise who was asked to return. In fact, they asked me to do six presentations, but golly, it takes me a week to prepare each one! So I asked to do only five. At the moment, I'll be doing presentations on two of the plays that will be in the 2009 season at OSF, one on death in Shakespeare, one on the humours (which includes a self-test to see what kind of humour you are most abundant in, and which characters you are thus most like), and "Why Read Shakespeare?"

While I was at Macworld in San Francisco attending to the working-for-a-living part of my life, I was approached by the book buyer for the gift shop at OSF (Oregon Shakespeare Festival). She ordered 25 copies of Sweet Swan of Avon: Did a Woman Write Shakespeare? because four people from the cruise (where I was not allowed to even talk about Mary Sidney) have come in requesting the book. Aha! A breach in the wall.

The Year of Mary Sidney

Omigosh the past six months were hellacious, but I just sent off The Last Computer Book I Will Ever Write and am dedicated to spending the next thirteen months on nothing but Mary Sidney and the Shakespearean works. I just got back from doing four presentations and a quiz show on the Shakespeare at Sea cruise which was so successful they are already booking for next year. I was not allowed to talk about Mary Sidney or authorship at all, but that's okay because it was more important on this venture to establish my knowledge of the Shakespearean works and my presentation/teaching skills on that subject.

A couple of documentaries are in progress about Mary Sidney; I'm doing a talk about her at the Newberry Library in Chicago and to the UCLA affiliates in Los Angeles in May; Wiltshire Life magazine, where Mary's estate of Wilton House is located, has asked me to write an article for the magazine; the Kentucky Shakespeare Festival has asked me to come out and do a talk this summer; and more. I'll put up details in the next few days. I also plan to start a Google news group so all those of us interested can share information more readily. And I must update the MarySidney.com and MarySidneySociety.org sites! So much to do! More anon!

Reasonable Doubt

The Shakespeare Authorship Coalition has formulated the Declaration of Reasonable Doubt About the Identity of William Shakespeare. It’s a document expressing the bona fide issues with the authorship (not actually the identity of the man named William Shakespeare) to educate people about the discussion and to advocate an open-minded examination. As the last line states, “We hereby declare that the identity of William Shakespeare should, henceforth, be regarded in academia as a legitimate issue for research and publication, and an appropriate topic for instruction and discussion in classrooms.”

As you may well know, the subject of authorship is strictly taboo in most colleges and universities—an odd contradiction in institutions that are supposed to explore and question and teach us to think for ourselves.

sigh.

But you have a chance to change all this! You are encouraged to sign the declaration yourself. If you do it by midnight (London time) on April 21, 2007, you will be on the historical list of initial signers. Your name will go down in history. Go to their web site: www.DoubtAboutWill.org and sign on!