Shakespeare's World Cup

Yes, you can relate Shakespeare to any topic or any event if you put your mind to it. I typed "Shakespeare" and "World Cup" into Google and came up with about a bazillion references to a play that was performed at a Canadian fringe festival in 2002. You can download the script, hook up to the play's database, and read interviews with the creators. It's a kick. Shakespeare's World Cup.  Here's a link to this year's Shakespeare's World Cup line over at No Sweat Shakespeare.

did Shakespeare ever get writer's block?

Shakespeare wrote at least 37 plays and maybe more, if scholars are right about his authorships of plays like Edward III and Thomas More.  That's a lot, and I find myself wondering how he would have fared in today's fast-paced publishing world. It used to be that only writers like Stephen King published a novel (or more) a year, but nowadays it seems like everyone from Amanda Hocking to the novelist next door is writing at a blistering pace. that doesn't apply to stageplays of course, unless you're talking about a community playhouse where the players are creating new material for each season, but still. Could Will have kept up?  I suspect the answer is yes. 
True, not every Shakespeare play is a Hamlet (seriously, does anyone ever go see King John except out of curiosity?) but if your other work includes Richard III and Romeo & Juliet, and Othello, you really don't have to write Hamlet every time.

Everything old is new again--Shakespeare and the supernatural

Every so often I think about how lucky we are that we have the wisdom of the ages at our fingertips. when I was a kid, my parents bought us a set of encyclopedias one volume at a time from the supermarket. These days, I have almost two thousand books in my kindle, and access to a bazillion more at the click of a mouse. And of course, there's Wikipedia. that day Wikipedia went dark in protest of possible changes to the Internet, I ... did not fare well.

If I were writing a term paper on any facet of Shakespeare now, I'd never have to leave my bedroom. Books that I would have had to request through inter-library collections are available just for the asking, many of them free and many of them the kinds of books that would have been housed in the rare books collection of any college library back in the day. For example, there's T. F. Thiselton Dyer's Folk-lore of Shakespeare, which was published in 1883 is available to download for less than $5 and if you type in various queries, the specific answer will, more often than not, show up in Google Books. The answer may not be the exact answer you want--i queried "mermaids in Shakespeare" and got a quote about Shakespeare and fishing, which made me think of my own story," Wild-Caught."

Preview of A Taste for Strange

I published the first book in my Lark Riordan/Max Siwek mystery series in March (Whipping Boy) and I'm closing in on the final draft of the sequel A Taste for Strange. (The third book in the series is called Raw Dog.) I offered this is the intro to the book, which is told from Max's point of view this time out. He's an LAPD homicide detective and his stepsister, Lark Riordan, is a forensic tech. She's also his lover. It's ... complicated.  

A TASTE FOR STRANGE

They found her hanging from a hook in the ceiling, twirling like a broken piñata. Her body was so bruised and boneless it had lost its shape, but her killer had not touched her face, which was flawless except for some cuts in the corner of her mouth where her perfect lips hung open.

Max felt a cloud of depression descend on him. The victim was young, so very young. And so very beautiful.

Shakespeare portrait by Heather Galler

I've been cruising Etsy of late, looking for swag to buy in advance of the October book fair in Sedona where Dark Valentine Press will have a table. And is my wont, I was looking around to see if there was anything new in the Shakespeare section. I found this very cool portrait by Heather Galler and I'm about to go snap it up. Because I deserve a little more art in my life.

BuzzFeed's Take on Films Inspired By Shakespeare

Ledger & Stiles

Some of their picks are pretty obvious, like the Heath Ledger/Julia Stiles rom-com !0 Things I Hate About You, which began life as The Taming of the Shrew. But there are other movie-bard connections that are a little more subtle, incluing Deliver Us From Eva (another Taming of the Shrew) and My Own Private Idaho, which traces its literary lineage back to Henry IV and Henry V.  (Keanu Reeves' street hustler is the Prince Hal character.) Check out the entire list.

Shakespeare on Pinterest

If you're engaged by Pinterest, as I am, you know that there are a lot of topics that seem to engaged Pinners.  They really, really, really like baby elephants. They really like puppies and kitties )who doesn't?) and they like pretty pictures of beautiful places and luscious photos of yummy food. But they also are interesting in Shakespeare's plays. One of my most popular boards is my Shakespeare board, and I'm hooked up to half a dozen others. There are lots of Shakespeare quotes pinned up on various boards. It's all about the words, but on Pinterest, it's about the pictures too.