Because you know someone who's had breast cancer

Breast cancer pretty much decimated the women of my mother's and grandmother's generation. It got my beloved Great-Aunt Helen (and a cleaner-living, more God-fearing, gentle woman you would never meet) and it also claimed my Great-Aunt Marie, who was a newspaperwoman in Chicago and during the war captured a spy!!
My Aunt Mabel died of breast cancer. An aunt on my father's side died of it too.
Two friends, one of them a very close friend, have had bushes with the disease and are now cancer-free.
But it's a sneaky disease. And 1 in 8 women are expected to develop it. (Here are some statistics.)
A charity anthology of seasonal essays: Write for the Fight, is now out and the proceeds are earmarked for breast cancer research. Right now it's free, though, so help spread the word.

Alias Shakespeare

Most survey courses in Shakespeare don't really get into the question of whether "Shakespeare" was actually someone else, but I had a college professor who was sort of fascinated by the topic, so he added in writings by all the top contenders--Christopher Marlowe, Francis Bacon. For me, it doesn't really matter. It's like the debate over who "Jack the Ripper" might have been. The plays exist; they're wonderful, and whoever wrote them chose to use the name Shakespeare.
Wikipedia has a great synopsis of the whole authorship question here.
You probably missed it, but last year director Roland Emmerich's movie Anonymous weighed in on the question,  making the claim that Edward De Vere (the Earl of Oxford) was the author. Rhys Ifans played the Earl with Vanessa Redgrave as Queen Elizabeth I.

A different kind of Zombie Novel

I am a fan of Rachel Caine's weather Warden novels and did not know about this book in advance. (And there's already a sequel to Working Stiff, due in early August.) So another for the TBR pile.

Pulp Ink 2 is coming!

So Pulp Ink is free!  Get it here. Like it! Review it! Spread the word. And then get ready for a second helping of inky pulpy goodness. And while you're on Amazon getting your free copy of Pulp Ink, why not pick up a free copy of Nigel Bird's third collection of short stories, With Love and Squalor.

Looking for a Good Read?

I spent most of May working on an interesting project, compiling a list of recommended biographies for a curated site offering listings of books in a number of categories--mystery, sf (curated by writer Cat Rambo), and children's stories. The bio page is now live. Check it out.

Fun with Shakespeare--the Games Edition

A few years ago the Shakespeare Country Tourist Board commissioned an online game based on Romeo and Juliet. Much to t heir delight and surprise, the game became an online hit, with more than 22 million people worldwide taking on the role of Romeo as he wanders through the streets of Stratford collecting roses for Juliet and dodging wild boars and skeletons.  (The Royal Shakespeare Company has given its seal of approval to the game, despite the skeletons, saying, "Although its not entirely representative of the way we perform the play, it's a good hook to get people interested in Romeo and Juliet."  I love that "not entirely representative" part.)You can play Romeo Wherefore Art Thou here at LorenzGames.  (I got turned into a skeleton after encountering a wild boar.)

Shakespeare in Fiction

 Who knew that Shakespeare's life and plays (and poetry) would inspire fan fiction? Who knew that some of those fans would be well-known writers? One book I'm particularly intrigued by is My Name is Will by Jess Winfield,subtitled "a novel of sex, drugs and Shakespeare.  The "Will" of the title is Willie Shakespeare Greenberg, a modern grad student who's up to no good, with a parallel story back in the 16th century.  It sounds ambitious and it's got a ton of four-star reviews on Amazon, so I'm going to check it out.  (I also love the cover.)

Christopher Moore, who wrote the delightful Practical Demonkeeping, has a novel called Fool that's based loosely (and hilariously) on King Lear.  Here the story is told, as the title suggests, from the point of view of the court jester. The story is Lear-centric but touches on the entire Shakespeare canon in passing and if you're a fan of Moore, you will love it and if you don't know Moore, this is the book to read after you've read Practical Demonkeeping, which is one of the funniest urban fantasies out there. (In fact, if I ever do an Amazon "listmania" list, it will be first on my list of "Urban Fantasies without vampires or werewolves.")

Another novel that intrigues me (and is, in fact, already resident in my Kindle) is AJ Hartley and David Hewson's Macbeth: A Novel, a reimagining of "the Scottish play." Set in 11th century Scotland but conceived like a 21st century thriller, the book sounds like a great read.

Several different sources have compiled lists of books inspired by Shakesoeare, including Steinbeck's The Winter of Our Discontent, Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, and A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley.  Here's Matt Haig's top ten novels inspired by Shakespeare.  Here's another list from Hub Pages. And finally, from the New York Public Library, a reading list of fiction based on or inspired by Shakespere.