English poet, playwright and actor
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Margaret of Anjou was a prominent figure during England's Wars of the Roses, just before the Tudor Era. At the end of the Tudor Era, William Shakespeare wrote several plays about the Wars - and in these, we see Margaret progress from young Princess to warrior Queen to mystical witch-crone. No other character has such a dramatic portrayal across Shakespeare's plays. The new book Shakespeare's Margaret is a biography of both Margaret, the real person, and also Margaret, the character written by Shakespeare. The book's authors Charles O'Malley and Scott W. Stern join us to talk all things Margaret and Shakespeare. Buy a copy of Shakespeare's Margaret: The Dramatic Life of a Warrior Queen (affiliate link) — Get 30% off paid Patreon memberships with code TUDOR all month at patreon.com/annfosterwriter — Buy a copy of Ann's book Rebel of the Regency — Get 15% off all the gorgeous jewellery and accessories at commonera.com/vulgar or go to commonera.com and use code VULGAR at checkout — Get Vulgar History merch at vulgarhistory.com/store (best for US shipping) and vulgarhistory.redbubble.com (better for international shipping) — Vulgar History is an affiliate of Bookshop.org, which means that a small percentage of any books you click through and purchase will come back to Vulgar History as a commission. Use this link to shop there and support Vulgar History. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The kids save a wedding. Blaine recites Shakespeare. Stranded on Catalina Island after the Outbreak, a small group of Adventure Scouts confront the “Infected", testing their mettle and the strength of their friendships. Armed with only determination and their Scout Rules, these preteens navigate the rugged island, discovering the essence of courage and sacrifice in the face of an apocalypse. Bonds are tested, innocence is lost, and the scout motto “Stay Alert, Stay Alive” takes on a whole new, dark significance.WARNING: This miniseries contains distressing scenarios involving children, including graphic violence and gore, as well as underage drinking and use of firearms. Listener discretion is advised.CAST:Beauden Michael McConnell as FranklinJulian Vidaurrazaga as BlaineDillon Wrich as ZachIsabella Burer as RubyRiley Jackson as CarmenMichael Swan as NarratorFull list of cast & crew: https://www.werealive.com/ We're Alive - Scouts Honor was originally released on its own podcast feed in 2024. In case you missed it, this summer 2026 we're sharing We're Alive - Scouts Honor weekly on the We're Alive podcast feed.WE'RE ALIVE: SCOUT'S HONOR, Chapter 4 - “Make a Toast” continues in Part 2, available now!Disclaimer: “We're Alive: Scout's Honor” and all of the events and characters associated with it are a work of fiction. This project is not sponsored or endorsed by Camp Emerald Bay or any other scouting organization. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Everybody sings the chorus, but superfans quote the verse. On this episode of Switched on Pop, Charlie and Nate trace the verse from Shakespeare through opera to TikTok, and songwriter Audrey Hobert shares her philosophy of specific verses and anthemic choruses: you can't have the payoff without the setup. CREDITS Reanna Cruz: Producer Iris Gottlieb: Illustrator Charlie Harding: Host, Executive Producer Dion Lee: Art Director Brandon McFarland: Audio Engineer Nick Ripps: Video Editor Nate Sloan: Host Lissa Soep: Editor Zach Tenorio & Jocie Adams: Theme Composers Switched On Pop is a co-production of Vox Media Podcast Network, Vulture, and Rock Ridge Productions. Links: Newsletter Songs discussed: Aretha Franklin, "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" Edward Meeker, "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" Third Eye Blind, "Semi-Charmed Life" Zara Larsson, "Lush Life" John Denver, "Take Me Home, Country Roads" Rick Astley, "Never Gonna Give You Up" William Smith, Choir of New College, Oxford, Edward Higginbottom, "Opening Versicles and Responses" Georges Bizet, Michel Plasson, Angela Gheorghiu, Les Éléments, Orchestre National Du Capitole De Toulouse, "Bizet: Carmen, WD 31, Act 1: Habanera. "L'amour est un oiseau rebelle" (Carmen, Chœur)" Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" Built to Spill, "Joyride" The Killers, "Mr. Brightside" Gracie Abrams, "That's So True" Audrey Hobert, "Sue me" Lizzo, "About Damn Time" Audrey Hobert, "Drive" Audrey Hobert, "Bowling alley" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Kyra Belle Johnson originated and is currently playing the role of Belle in Disney's North American Tour of "Beauty and the Beast." Previously, Kyra played the role of Sophie in the Broadway National Tour of "Mamma Mia" and has been seen in films and on television in "Damned If You Do," "Role Play," and "FBI."A Los Angeles native, Kyra graduated from Texas State University, with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Musical Theatre. She continued her studies abroad, training at The Globe, Shakespeare's Birthplace Trust, and the Royal Shakespeare Company in the United Kingdom.Kyra is a beauty, inside and out, and we know you're going to love listening to this interview!Email: TheMouseAndMePodcast@gmail.comSupport: www.patreon.com/themouseandmeFB and Instagram: “The Mouse and Me”Music by Kevin MacLeod from https://incompetech.filmmusic.io
Part one of the mid-year coverage of things literally and figuratively unearthed in the last quarter includes updates, more updates, animals, edibles and potables, and accidental finds. Research: Addley, Esther. “Solstice-aligned 5,000-year-old monument ‘once in a lifetime find’, say archaeologists.” The Guardian. 6/17/2026. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jun/18/solstice-aligned-monument-archaeology-wiltshire-stonehenge-prototype Anderson, Sonja. “These 600-Year-Old Chinese Surgical Instruments Are Coated in an Early Local Anesthetic—Carefully Extracted From a Poisonous Plant.” Smithsonian. 5/29/2026. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/these-600-year-old-chinese-surgical-instruments-are-coated-in-an-early-local-anestheticcarefully-extracted-from-a-poisonous-plant-180988865/ Archaeology Magazine. “Copper Part From Illicit 19th Century Still Discovered in Scotland.” 5/12/2026. https://archaeology.org/news/2026/05/12/copper-part-from-illicit-19th-century-still-discovered-in-scotland/ Associated Press Copenhagen. “Archaeologists discover wreck of Danish warship sunk by Nelson 225 years ago.” The Guardian. 4/2/2026. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/apr/02/archaeologists-discover-wreck-danish-warship-sunk-admiral-nelson Bassi, Margherita. “After Nearly 80 Years of Doubt, Scientists Say a Spear Lodged Between Elephant Ribs Offers Evidence That Neanderthals Hunted Big Game.” Smithsonian. 4/10/2026. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/after-nearly-80-years-of-doubt-scientists-say-a-spear-lodged-between-elephant-ribs-offers-evidence-that-neanderthals-hunted-big-game-180988522/ Baum, Stephanie and Robert Egan. “Bolivian mummy rewrites scarlet fever's past, suggesting killer bacterium circulated centuries before colonization.” EurekAlert. 4/15/2026. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-bolivian-mummy-rewrites-scarlet-fever.html Blackwood, Emma. “Baby fossils reveal link between human and Neanderthal development.” University of Queensland. Via EurekAlert. 6/19/2026. https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1132850 Blair, Elizabeth. “Decades-old, newly restored Smithsonian carousel reopens — to children’s delight.” WAMU. 4/25/2026. https://wamu.org/story/26/04/25/decades-old-newly-restored-smithsonian-carousel-reopens-to-childrens-delight/ Blake, Elissa. “New evidence reveals a millennium-old dingo was ritually buried, and cared for, along the Darling (Baaka) River in Australia.” University of Sydney. Via EurekAlert. 5/18/2026. https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1128408 Cerino, Marco. “Appeals court clears Trump's path to alter Philadelphia slavery exhibit at historic site.” Philadelphia Tribune. 6/18/2026. https://www.phillytrib.com/news/local_news/appeals-court-clears-trumps-path-to-alter-philadelphia-slavery-exhibit-at-historic-site/article_8ac83e65-6a6d-4db1-91c4-074f98c96a74.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=email&utm_campaign=user-share Clark, Gaby. “Climate and competition alone cannot explain Neanderthal extinction, study finds.” Phys.org. 4/23/2026. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-climate-competition-neanderthal-extinction.html Clark, Gaby. “Did Neanderthals use rhinoceros teeth as tools?” Phys.org. 6/18/2026. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-neanderthals-rhinoceros-teeth-tools.html Clark, Gaby. “Nondestructive DNA sampling reveals 1,300 years of secrets in historic parchments.” Phys.org. 5/18/2026. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-nondestructive-dna-sampling-reveals-years.html Clark, Gaby. “Surprising diversity found among Europe's last Neanderthals.” Leiden University. Via Phys.org. 6/24/2026. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-diversity-europe-neanderthals.html Cummings, Mike. “Medici brothers' remains reveal Renaissance-era malaria strains, closing the book on a murder mystery.” Phys.org. 6/30/2026. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-medici-brothers-reveal-renaissance-era.html Defranceschi, Laura. “Ötzi and his microbiome: a 5,300-year-old relationship.” Eurac Research. Via EurekAlert. 6/2/2026. https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1129908 Dungate, Joanna. “Shakespeare’s ‘missing’ London house mapped with new discovery.” Kings College London. Via EurekAlert. 4/15/2026. https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1123989 Egan, Robert. “Neanderthal dentists used stone drills to treat cavities nearly 60,000 years ago, ancient molar suggests.” Phys.org. 5/13/2026. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-neanderthal-dentists-stone-drills-cavities.html Egan, Robert. “Stonehenge Altar Stone's epic transportation across ancient Britain detailed in new study.” Curtin University. Via Phys.org. 6/4/2026. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-stonehenge-altar-stone-epic-ancient.html Ellenby, Danielle. “Medieval Japanese poetry and buried trees help elucidate volatile space weather.” EurekAlert. 4/9/2026. https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1123008 Forbes, Ellie. “Archaeologists discover unexploded mortar shell at Culloden Battlefield.” Scottish Field. 4/14/2026. https://www.scottishfield.co.uk/news/archaeologists-discover-unexploded-mortar-shell-at-culloden-battlefield/ Harley, Sadie and Robert Egan. “Ancient chicken bones reveal human management in Korea 2,000 years ago.” Phys.org. 4/22/2026. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-ancient-chicken-bones-reveal-human.html Jones, Sam. “Hidden treasures: Spanish archaeologists discover trove of ancient shipwrecks in Bay of Gibraltar.” The Guardian. 4/15/2026. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/apr/15/hidden-treasures-spanish-archaeologists-discover-trove-of-ancient-shipwrecks-in-bay-of-gibraltar Kuta, Sarah. “A Shipwreck, but Make It Fashion: Researchers Transformed Wooden Fragments From a 17th-Century Shipwreck Into a Pair of Stylish Maxi Dresses.” Smithsonian. 5/26/2026. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/a-shipwreck-but-make-it-fashion-researchers-transformed-wooden-fragments-from-a-17th-century-shipwreck-into-a-pair-of-stylish-maxi-dresses-180988825/ Kuta, Sarah. “Archaeologists Discover Evidence That a Wooden Prototype for Stonehenge May Have Aligned With the Solstice 500 Years Before the Stone Circle.” Smithsonian. 6/19/2026. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/archaeologists-discover-evidence-a-wooden-prototype-for-stonehenge-may-have-aligned-with-the-solstice-500-years-before-the-stone-circle-180988988/ Kuta, Sarah. “Did Homo Sapiens Really Outsmart Neanderthals? Different Skull Shapes Didn’t Necessarily Mean Unequal Brain Capacity, New Research Shows.” Smithsonian. 5/13/2026. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/did-homo-sapiens-really-outsmart-neanderthals-different-skull-shapes-didnt-necessarily-mean-unequal-brain-capacity-new-research-shows-180988738/ Kuta, Sarah. “Did Homo Sapiens Really Outsmart Neanderthals? Different Skull Shapes Didn’t Necessarily Mean Unequal Brain Capacity, New Research Shows.” Smithsonian. 5/13/2026. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/did-homo-sapiens-really-outsmart-neanderthals-different-skull-shapes-didnt-necessarily-mean-unequal-brain-capacity-new-research-shows-180988738/ Kuta, Sarah. “Potatoes Didn’t Just Feed Ancient Indigenous Communities in the Andes—the Tasty Tubers Also Reshaped People’s DNA.” Smithsonain. 5/12/2026. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/potatoes-didnt-just-feed-ancient-indigenous-communities-in-the-andes-the-tasty-tubers-also-reshaped-peoples-dna-180988732/ Kuta, Sarah. “This American Submarine Lost During WWII—Along With 83 Crew Members—Has Been Discovered in the Pacific Ocean.” Smithsonian. 6/3/2026. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/this-american-submarine-USS-Herring-lost-during-WWII-along-with-83-crew-members-has-been-discovered-in-the-pacific-ocean-180988895/ Kuta, Sarah. “Turtles May Have Been Tasty Snacks for Neanderthals 125,000 Years Ago. But Their Shells Were Probably the Real Prize.” Smithsonian. 4/15/2026. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/turtles-may-have-been-tasty-snacks-for-neanderthals-125000-years-ago-but-their-shells-were-probably-the-real-prize-180988550/ Kuta, Sarah. “What Killed the Neanderthals? New Research Suggests a Lack of Genetic Diversity May Be Partially to Blame.” Smithsonian. 4/24/2026. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/what-killed-the-neanderthals-new-research-suggests-a-lack-of-genetic-diversity-may-be-partially-to-blame-180988612/ Lakowski, Amy. “Digging for Remnants of the Battle of Bunker Hill.” Bostonia. Boston University’s Alumni Magazine. 6/22/2026. https://www.bu.edu/articles/2026/digging-for-remnants-battle-of-bunker-hill/ Lawson-Tancred, Jo. “The Sagrada Familia Will Finally Be Completed in 2026. The Last Challenge? Demolishing the Homes of Some 3,000 Local Residents.” ArtNet. 2/13/2023. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/sagrada-familia-2026-local-residents-2254826 Lock, Lisa and Robert Egan. “Ancient curse tablet bears rare Greek inscription with binding spell intended to harm enemies.” Phys.org. 6/17/2026. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-ancient-curse-tablet-rare-greek.html Lu, Donna. “Signs of ‘feeding’ ritual at dingo burial site shed new light on bond between First Nations people and canines.” The Guardian. 5/18/2026. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/may/19/dingo-burial-site-first-nations-people-relationship-to-animals net. “Lost Writings of Saint Augustine Found in Medieval Manuscript.” 6/2026. https://www.medievalists.net/2026/06/lost-writings-of-saint-augustine-found-in-medieval-manuscript/ net. “Secret Letter Detailing Late Medieval Britain Fully Decoded.” https://www.medievalists.net/2026/04/secret-letter-detailing-late-medieval-britain-fully-decoded/ Mehrtens, Michelle. “A Young Black Girl Was the First to Desegregate a Maryland Carousel in the 1960s. Now, the Historic Merry-Go-Round Will Entertain Visitors on the National Mall.” Smithsonian. 4/22/2026. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/a-young-black-girl-was-the-first-to-desegregate-a-maryland-carousel-in-the-1960s-now-the-historic-merry-go-round-will-entertain-visitors-on-the-national-mall-180988596/ Mondal, Sanjukta. “Scraped from ancient Roman toilets, these crusted remains expose a pathogen found far earlier than expected.” Phys.org. 4/23/2026. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-ancient-roman-toilets-crusted-expose.html Moreau, Didier and Julie Louis. “Thirty previously unpublished verses by Empedocles discovered on a papyrus from Cairo.” University of Liege. Via EurekAlert. 4/1/2026. https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1122449 Mosquera, Pau. “Sagrada Família’s 144-year journey nears its end with the Tower of Jesus Christ.” CNN. 6/8/2026. https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/08/style/sagrada-familia-barcelona-tower-jesus-christ-intl Nicholls, Catherine and Taylor Nicioli. “Papyrus scroll burnt to a crisp during Vesuvius eruption deciphered with help of AI.” CNN. 6/26/2026. https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/26/science/papyrus-scroll-vesuvius-ai-scli-intl Oster, Sandee et al. “Rare 500-year-old freeze-dried potatoes unearthed at Inca coastal site.” Phys.org. 6/14/2026. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-rare-year-dried-potatoes-unearthed.html Oster, Sandee. “A kohl bottle from York may hint at an ancient Egyptian in Roman-Britain.” Phys.org. 5/31/2026. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-kohl-bottle-york-hint-ancient.html Oster, Sandee. “Lavatory shaft reveals the cost of 17th‑century vanity in Germany.” Phys.org. 6/23/2026. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-lavatory-shaft-reveals-17thcentury-vanity.html Oster, Sandee. “Mummified dogs reveal Tiwanaku people buried companions beside homes long before they became status symbols.” Phys.org. 6/29/2026. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-mummified-dogs-reveal-tiwanaku-people.html Randolph, Mary. “A Man and His Dog Discovered a 3,400-Year-Old Ax Head While Out for a Walk in One of England’s Ancient Forests.” Smithsonian. 4/30/2026. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/a-man-and-his-dog-accidentally-discovered-a-3400-year-old-ax-head-while-out-for-a-walk-in-one-of-englands-ancient-forests-180988649/ Randolph, Mary. “After a Poet’s Love Story Was Cut Short, His Letters Mysteriously Disappeared—Until Rare Book Dealers Acted on a Hunch.” Smithsonian. 4/21/2026. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/after-john-keats-love-story-was-cut-short-his-letters-mysteriously-disappeared-until-rare-book-dealers-acted-on-a-hunch-180988585/ Science in Poland. “Ancient ‘beer’ traces found in 4,500-year-old vessels in Northeastern Poland.” 5/17/2026. https://scienceinpoland.pl/en/news/news%2C112850%2Cancient-beer-traces-found-4500-year-old-vessels-northeastern-poland.html Solly, Meilan. “A 13-Year-Old Boy Found This Bronze Coin in a Field. It Turned Out to Be the First Ancient Greek Artifact Discovered in Berlin.” Smithsonian. 8/28/2026. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/a-13-year-old-boy-found-this-bronze-coin-in-a-field-it-turned-out-to-be-the-first-ancient-greek-artifact-discovered-in-berlin-180988627/ Solly, Meilan. “New research has identified four members of the doomed 1845 search for the Northwest Passage, including the owner of a paper-stuffed wallet that has long mystified historians.” Smithsonian. 5/8/2026. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/this-franklin-expedition-officer-died-in-the-arctic-in-uniform-that-didnt-belong-to-him-now-dna-has-revealed-his-identity-180988702/ Solly, Meilan. “These Italian Teenagers Stayed Overnight at Their School. They Found Ancient Roman Ruins Hidden in the Basement.” Smithsonian. 6/8/2026. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/these-italian-teenagers-stayed-overnight-at-their-school-they-found-ancient-roman-ruins-hidden-in-the-basement-180988917/ The History Blog. “1,500-year-old kitchen knife set found in Hadrianopolis.” 4/22/2026. https://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/75890 The History Blog. “11th c. sword found in Warta River in Poland.” 6/15/2026. https://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/76308 The History Blog. “Charred loaf of bread found at Roman military camp.” 4/24/2026. https://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/75904 The History Blog. “First-grader on field trip finds 1,300-year-old sword.” 5/13/2026. https://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/76055 The History Blog. “Matching fragments of Silla stele reunited.” 4/15/2026. https://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/75837 Thorsberg, Christian. “A Hiker in Norway Found an Elite Warrior’s Golden Sword Ornament. It Was Likely a Sacrifice to the Gods Made During a Time of Turmoil.” Smithsonian. 5/8/2026. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/a-hiker-in-norway-found-an-elite-warriors-golden-sword-ornament-it-was-likely-a-sacrifice-to-the-gods-made-during-a-time-of-turmoil-180988707/ University of Copenhagen. "4,000-year-old tablets reveal magic spells, kings feared, and a beer receipt." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 5 May 2026. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/05/260504023848.htm. University of Iowa Health Care. "Ancient DNA shared with Neanderthals may explain human language." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 12 June 2026. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/06/260611024612.htm University of York. “Ancient DNA from Tuscan Wells Reveal Origins of Modern Wine.” 5/12/2026. https://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2026/research/ancient-dna-tuscan-wells-origins-wine/ Wexler, Ellen. “Archaeologists Unearth a Papyrus Fragment From the ‘Iliad’ Tucked Inside the Wrappings of a 1,600-Year-Old Egyptian Mummy.” Smithsonian. 4/23/2026. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/archaeologists-unearth-a-papyrus-fragment-from-the-iliad-tucked-inside-the-wrappings-of-a-1600-year-old-egyptian-mummy-180988603/ Wexler, Ellen. “Divers Discover the Shipwreck of a World War I-Era Coast Guard Cutter, Which Vanished With 131 Sailors on Board in 1918.” Smithsonian. 5/7/2026. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/divers-discover-the-shipwreck-of-a-world-war-i-era-coast-guard-cutter-which-vanished-with-131-sailors-on-board-in-1918-180988676/ Wexler, Ellen. “Why Did the Handwriting in This 248-Year-Old Notebook Look Familiar? It Turned Out to Be a Forgotten Mozart Manuscript.” Smithsonian. 6/25/2026. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/why-did-the-handwriting-in-this-248-year-old-notebook-look-familiar-it-turned-out-to-be-a-forgotten-mozart-manuscript-180989017/ Whiddington, Richard. “Newly Recovered Love Letters by John Keats Could Net $2 Million at Auction.” ArtNet. 5/12/2026. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/john-keats-love-letters-sothebys-auction-2772300 Whiddington, Richard. “Rare Centuries-Old Notebook Discovered in Medieval Latrine.” ArtNet. 5/18/2026. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/notebook-medieval-latrine-2774230 Whiddington, Richard. “Shakespeare’s London Home Finally Located After Centuries of Mystery.” ArtNet. 4/17/2026. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/shakespeare-london-home-site-found-2766154 Widdington, Richard. “Lost Copy of Earliest-Known English Poem Found in Roman Library.” ArtNet. 5/10/2026. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/caedmon-hymn-copy-rome-library-trinity-college-2771600 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Episode 225:Last time my guest Paul Fried and I discussed Biblical Allusion in Shakespeare with particular reference to Hamlet. This is the second part of our conversation, so please do make sure you have listened to part one before continuing here, things will make a lot more sense if you do. I first came across Paul's Blog, Hamlet's Bible, when I was researching my episodes on King Lear and I was very pleased to find that not only was it useful for those episodes but was a series of very interesting posts relating to Biblical allusion in Shakespeare, so, of course, I asked Paul, if he would like to come onto the podcast to share some of his insights into this subject. Paul is a retired college lecturer who has devoted years of study to Shakespeare and the bible and his blog, now in it's tenth year, has become his way of sharing his research prior to what he hopes will be a published volume on Biblical allusion in Hamlet. He has also contributed several papers to Shakespeare conferences, most recently at the Shakespeare Association of America conference held in Denver in April 2026.I spoke to Paul from his home in Minnesota over a zoom call.Link to Paul's blog ‘Hamlet's Bible': https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/Link to ‘Hamlet's Bible' on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hamletsbible/Link to Paul's account on ‘X': https://x.com/padrianfriedSupport the podcast at:www.thehistoryofeuropeantheatre.comwww.patreon.com/thoetpwww.ko-fi.com/thoetpYou can find an advertisement free version of the latest podcast episodes by joining on Patreon at the lowest paid tier level – that's for just £1 per month. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Hamlet wagers 6 Barbary horses against 6 French swords. Falstaff talks about fighting with a Barbary hen. Bassanio in Merchant of Venice talks about travelling merchants going to foreign lands including "Tripolis, Mexico and England, Lisbon, Barbary, and India" There are also an additional 5 references to Barbary horses. The Barbary States were Algeria, Tunisia, Tripolis, and Morroco. These were powerful coastal societies tied in various ways to the Ottoman world, and in Shakespeare's day they were central to English fears about piracy and captivity. Ships were seized. Sailors were enslaved. Families, merchants, churches, and governments negotiated over the price of a human life. English first hand accounts of the Muslim world and the Barbary States in particular were sparse, even non-existent prior to Richard Knolles publication in 1603 where he writes the History of the Turks, the same year Shakespeare publishes his Ottoman-heavy play with a Moor in the title role, Othello. Today we are joined by Daniel Vitkus, editor of Piracy, Slavery, and Redemption: Barbary Captivity Narratives from Early Modern England, and Abdulhamit Arvas, Associate Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania and expert on early modern Muslims, Barbary pirates, and Shakespeare. They are here to help us explore the place of the Barbary Coast in Shakespeare's England, to understand the culture of hostages and holding someone ransom, what was happening to Britons that were taken captive and sold into slavery by the Barbary pirates, as well as to explain the surprising dichotomy of being afraid of the Barbary nation while admiring their products, like horses.
Langwarrin, Victoria, 1914. The whole world is at war. In Langwarrin on the Mornington Peninsula, fourteen-year-old Jack Thorning is the best marksman in military cadet training. His brother, Matt, taught him everything he knew, after their father died. But now Matt has joined the war effort, and it's up to Jack to hold down the home front and help his mother run the family orchard.When a group of 'enemy aliens' are sent to Langwarrin to be held prisoner at the military base, tensions in the town run high. For Jack and his best friend, Walter, the war feels closer than ever. Like the rest of the town, Jack and Walter want nothing to do with the German prisoners. But as the war progresses, the inmates at the camp are put to work doing manual labour on the farms around Langwarrin, including Jack's family orchard, and Jack begins to see that the prisoners are people, too.In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Danielle Binks about her home town and her fascination with it's war-time history, how the works of Shakespeare still resonate for young people today, and why World War I's impact in shaping events of the 20th Century is often overlooked.
A child's mutilated torso surfaced from the Thames near Shakespeare's Globe in 2001, and more than two decades later no one has been convicted of killing the boy investigators could only call Adam.EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/TorsoInTheThamesREAD or DOWNLOAD the full transcript of this episode: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/3h6yrmk5FEATURED STORIES IN THIS EPISODE: Most people, when they think of the end of their lives, want to feel that they have accomplished something of significance. To leave a lasting legacy. But it is much more rare for someone to accomplish something significant – after they are dead! (Done By The Dead) *** Mrs. Elizabeth G. Wharton was a pillar of society in Baltimore, Maryland in the late 1800s. That is, until she was accused of murdering General William Scott Ketchum. (The Baltimore Borgia) *** For every legitimate and fascinating find by geologists, there seems to be a fraudulent find somewhere else trying to fool the masses. This has been a problem since geology became a thing – and one of the most fascinating of these true tales is the one about Baringer's Lying Stones. (The Lying Stones) *** A strange, ape-like creature with glowing eyes in England might really be, as some believe, a specter of the night. (Man-Monkey of the Night) *** It's hard to understand how human sacrifice has ever been a reality in any point in history – but what if you were to learn that evidence of it showed up in London, England… in 2001? (Torso In The River) *** A would-be geisha murders her lover… but the events leading up to and during the death make for a fascinatingly dark story. (The Murderess Geisha) *** When it comes to spectral animals, we're more than familiar with black dogs or hell hounds, ghostly cats, horses carrying a headed or headless phantom, even a ghost bear rumored to haunt the Tower of London… but have you ever heard of the American Southwest's ghost camels? (America's Ghost Camels)CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…00:00:00.000 = Show Open00:02:24.699 = America's Ghost Camels00:09:18.422 = Done By The Dead ***00:22:00.457 = The Baltimore Borgia ***00:27:35.655 = The Lying Stones00:36:08.415 = Torso In The River ***00:42:13.573 = The Murderess Geisha00:54:03.666 = Man-Monkey of the Night ***00:58:48.550 = Show Close*** = Begins immediately after inserted ad breakLISTEN ON PODCAST APPS: Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.com/wdapps*No AI Voices Are Used In The Narration Of This Podcast*SOURCES and RESOURCES:“Man-Monkey Of The Night” by Nick Redfern for MysteriousUniverse.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/bdhdevrr“Done By The Dead” by Kyle D. Walter for ListVerse.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/y62afnj6“America's Ghost Camels” by Kathy Weiser-Alexander for LegendsOfAmerica.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p979beb“The Baltimore Borgia” by Robert Wilhelm for MurderByGaslight.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/y2whacb9“Torso In The River” by Richard Hoskins for MysteryConfidential.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/bdd5u543“The Murderess Geisha” by Dr. Romeo Vitelli for Providentia: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/yzy4v3wy“The Lying Stones” by Brent Swancer for MysteriousUniverse.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p854d9e(Over time links may become invalid, disappear, or have different content. I always make sure to give authors credit for the material I use whenever possible. If I somehow overlooked doing so for a story, or if a credit is incorrect, please let me know and I will rectify it in these show notes immediately. Some links included above may benefit me financially through qualifying purchases.)WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.Originally aired: January, 2021This episode of Weird Darkness moves from ghost camels haunting the Arizona desert to corpses that kept making history after death, a Baltimore poisoning that gripped a courtroom for weeks, a professor fooled by carved stones, a child's murder in the Thames that London police have never solved, a Tokyo geisha who killed the man she loved, and a glowing-eyed creature on an English canal bridge.It opens in the American southwest, where the U.S. War Department imported some seventy-two camels in 1857 to haul supplies, only to turn the animals loose in the desert when the Civil War broke out and the soldiers tired of their foul temper and habit of spooking horses. Wild camels roamed Arizona for decades afterward, and one became legend as the Red Ghost — a beast blamed for trampling a woman to death in 1883 and later seen carrying a dead man lashed to its back, a rider who eventually decayed until a human skull dropped from the saddle in front of a group of startled prospectors. An Arizona farmer finally shot the animal in 1893, still wearing the leather straps that had held its corpse rider in place.From there the episode turns to figures who kept shaping the world after they died. A gang of Chicago counterfeiters led by "Big Jim" Kennally plotted in 1876 to steal Abraham Lincoln's body from his Springfield tomb and ransom it for a jailed engraver, foiled by a Secret Service informant working for the very agency Lincoln himself had signed into existence. A grave robber broke into George Washington's crypt at Mount Vernon in 1830 hunting the president's skull and made off with the wrong one. The British philosopher Jeremy Bentham left instructions to have his body dissected and mummified, and it sits on display at University College London to this day. And in the ninth century Pope Stephen VI dug up his predecessor Formosus, dressed the rotting corpse in papal vestments, propped it up for trial, found it guilty, and had it thrown into the Tiber.Next comes Baltimore in 1871, where Elizabeth Wharton, a respected society widow, hosted General William Scott Ketchum in her home on Hamilton Place until he fell suddenly ill and died with twenty grains of tartar emetic in his stomach — fifteen is enough to kill. Police discovered she had bought sixty grains days earlier, and a financial advisor named Eugene Van Ness nearly died the same way after she served him a drink. Her forty-two-day poison trial in Annapolis exhausted the medical and chemical experts of the day, and after deliberating through the night the jury acquitted her of murder.The episode then crosses to Germany, where Johann Beringer, a celebrated professor at the University of Würzburg, spent 1725 collecting strange carved stones dug up on Mount Eibelstadt by teenage boys he had hired — figures of birds, lizards, comets, and the name of God rendered in Hebrew. Convinced they were the handiwork of God himself, he published a book on them called the Lithographiae Wirceburgensis, only to learn the nearly two thousand stones had been planted by two envious colleagues, J. Ignatz Roderick and Johann Georg von Eckhart, who thought him an arrogant know-it-all and wanted to humble him.From an academic hoax the episode moves to an unsolved horror. On September 21st, 2001, a child's headless, limbless torso surfaced from the Thames near the Globe Theatre, wrapped in orange cloth, and London's Metropolitan Police could give the boy no name but Adam. Forensic analysis of poison and minerals in his remains traced him to the Benin region of Nigeria and showed he had been paralyzed and drained of blood in what investigators believed was a muti ritual killing. Nelson Mandela made an international appeal for information, and traffickers including Kingsley Ojo and a caregiver named Joyce Osagiede were investigated, but no one has ever been convicted and the boy's true identity has never been confirmed.The episode carries that darkness into 1936 Tokyo, where Sada Abe strangled her lover Kichizo Ishida in an inn after a days-long affair, then took a kitchen knife to his body and carried a severed part of him away in her handbag. Her capture two days later set off a national obsession the papers called "Sada mania," and her testimony about killing the man she refused to share became a bestseller in a country where such candor was scandalous. She was sentenced to six years, served her time as a model prisoner, and vanished from public life sometime after 1970.The episode closes on a cold English night in January 1879, when a furniture hauler crossing Bridge 39 over the Shropshire Union Canal near the village of Ranton was charged by a shaggy, ape-like creature with glowing eyes that leapt onto his cart and terrified his horse. When he swung his whip at the thing, the lash passed straight through its body, and the creature bolted down toward the canal and vanished. The folklorist Charlotte Burne later learned from the village constable that the sightings had begun only days after a man drowned in that same canal, in a place where people believed a violent death could send someone back in the shape of a beast.
James Marino, Michael Portantiere, and Carey Purcell review Girl, Interrupted @ The Public, The Whoopi Monologues @ LCT’s Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater, Romeo & Juliet @ The Revitalized Delacorte Theater, The Drilling Company’s Shakespeare in the Parking Lot’s As You Like It, HENRY VI: A Trilogy in Two Parts @ read more
Maggie O'Farrell brought Shakespeare's son out of the footnotes of history with her 2020 novel Hamnet. Its hugely successful movie adaptation made a splash at the Oscars and Maggie herself earned a nomination for the screenplay. Maggie's new novel, Land, continues to pull from the shadows of history ... while also drawing on her own family myths. It's a sweeping epic that begins with a father-son mapmaking duo in 19th century Ireland. This week, Maggie joins Mattea Roach to talk about taking Hamnet from page to screen, writing about lesser known histories and her new novel's surprising Canadian connection. Liked this conversation? Keep listening:Douglas Stuart was a fashion exec — now he designs stories Jack Wang: Reimagining the lost stories of Chinese Canadians during WWII Check us out on Instagram @cbcbooks and TikTok @cbcbooks
The Hamlet Podcast - a twice weekly exploration of Shakespeare's Othello. Act One, Scene One | Roderigo and Iago enter, arguing over some bad news. Written and presented by Conor Hanratty
Lingthusiasm - A podcast that's enthusiastic about linguistics
Can we teach dogs to express their needs better by pressing buttons? What about the studies trying to teach bonobos and other primates to communicate through buttons or signs? What have we learned about whale communication from the first-ever recording of a sperm whale birth? In this episode, your hosts Lauren Gawne and Gretchen McCulloch get enthusiastic about how people use technology to try and enhance our communications with bonobos, dogs, and sperm whales. (Sorry, other animals, you'll need to wait for a future episode.) We talk about the crucial distinction in animal communication studies between "any communication at all" (yes) and "language the way humans do it" (no), how we can actually learn more by appreciating animal communication systems on their own terms, and how some kinds of tech are helping us do that. We also talk about the logistics of studying animal communication, including avoiding the Clever Hans effect, how ubiquitous recording technology has changed the game on whalesong in recent decades (but there's still lots of catching up to do), and an at-home study of over 10,000 dogs using buttons (they're still recruiting if you want to join!). Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice: https://pod.link/1186056137/episode/dGFnOnNvdW5kY2xvdWQsMjAxMDp0cmFja3MvMjM2MjQ0ODQ0NA Read the transcript here: https://lingthusiasm.com/post/822345633242431488/transcript-episode-118-using-tech-to-chat-with Announcements: Gretchen was invited to narrate the audiobook for Shakespeare's Sonnets: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness by friend of the podcast Zach Weinersmith (https://smbc-store.myshopify.com/products/shakespeares-sonnets-abridged-beyond-the-point-of-usefulness?variant=46040499585162), and we have some free copies to give away to patrons! Follow us at any level on Patreon (including free) to read the behind-the-scenes post about reading the sonnets and get the audiobook: https://www.patreon.com/lingthusiasm/posts/gretchen-does-150055895 In this month's bonus episode we get enthusiastic about some of our favourite deleted bits from recent interviews that we didn't quite have space to share with you! First, an excerpt from our interview with Danny Bate, host of the podcast A Language I Love Is... about a language he loves: Czech! We talk about learning languages through in-laws, stock phrases, and hidden etymological parallels. Second, more from Claire Bowern about the mysterious Voynich Manuscript, including a peek inside her super multidisciplinary class on the topic, and the story of World War II codebreakers who worked on the manuscript in between solving lightning-fast crossword puzzles and the Enigma Machine. Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 110+ other bonus episodes, and see new projects before they're public. You'll also get access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds: https://www.patreon.com/lingthusiasm/posts/bonus-113-out-162684830 For links to things mentioned in this episode: https://lingthusiasm.com/post/822345062824476672/118-using-tech-to-chat-with-bonobos-dogs-and
On the #amwriting podcast's Margin Notes, host Jennie Nash talks with Caroline Bicks, Stephen E. King Chair in Literature at the University of Maine and co-host of the Everyday Shakespeare podcast, about her book Monsters in the Archives: A Year of Fear with Stephen King. Bicks describes how she became the first invited into King's Bangor archives after King called to meet her, and how her sabbatical became a year of researching five formative works (including Carrie, Night Shift, The Shining, Salem's Lot, and Pet Sematary) to understand how horror language creates lasting fear. She explains choosing a first-person narrative that blends literary criticism, archival discovery, and her own anxiety, including eerie moments in the archive and insights into King's word-level edits, literary influences, and Shakespearean foundations, especially The Shining's ties to Hamlet.#AmWriting is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Read the Book* Monsters in the Archives by Caroline BicksTranscriptJennie: [00:00:00] Hi, I'm Jennie Nash, and you're listening to the #amwriting podcast, the place where we help writers of all kinds play big in your writing life, love the process, and stick with it long enough to finish what matters most. Welcome, everyone. This is Margin Notes, the part of the podcast where we're talking about the big decisions writers face in their work and creative lives.I'm here today with a super special guest. I'm so excited to speak with Caroline Bicks. She is the Stephen E. King Chair in Literature at the University of Maine, where she teaches courses in Shakespeare, early modern culture, and horror fiction. And she's the author of all kinds of very cool books ... about Shakespeare, including one on cocktails.Um, and, uh, is the co-host of the Everyday Shakespeare podcast, and we are here today to talk with her about her new book called [00:01:00] Monsters in the Archives: A Year of Fear with Stephen King. Welcome.Caroline: Thank you. Thanks for having me.Jennie: So this is gonna be the strangest interview you've probably ever done. ICaroline: don't know.Because- I've talked to a lot of people around the world about this Stephen King book.Jennie: I couldn't read your book. I, I couldn't read it. I can't read horror. Yeah. Which listeners of this podcast are gonna laugh about, ‘cause I'm actually coaching someone live and they're writing gothic horror, and they're probably like, “All you talk about is horror, Jennie.”But, um, it's actually the reason why I wanted to talk to you, because you made a decision in the writing of this book that I thought was super cool. Mm. Which was you put yourself in it.Caroline: Yeah.Jennie: And you're a scholar.Caroline: Yeah.Jennie: And you've written scholarly books, and you approach this with a scholarly perspective, but you, you really put yourself in it.And, and so [00:02:00] I was reading it for that part of the story and I had to skip over huge chunks of, of the, of the work. Because what you're doing in this book is you're getting at this question of- W- what, what is scary in writing? Like, how does it actually work? How does it act- what is the magic or the function that makes us feel this thing?And you actually feel it yourself while you're going through it, and I found it quite terrifying actually. So, um, that's kinda what I wanted to talk about is how did you make the decision? Well, first of all, you were the first person, I wanna make sure I get this right, ‘cause this is very cool. Yeah. You were the first person who was invited to the archives, the Stephen King archives.Caroline: Yeah. I mean, it's, it's a bit of a story, so I won't spend too much time on it, but just the mo- Oh, no, do. It's good ... when I ch- when I took this position... So I've been a Shakespeare professor my whole adult life, ba- as soon as I graduated from grad school in the late ‘90s, [00:03:00] and I was at Boston College for 15 years.I took this position at University of Maine nine years ago as a Shakespearean. Um, so it is an endowed chair in Stephen King's name because he's our most famous alum. So when I took the position, I, it was because I'm a Shakespearean, not because I'm a horror specialist. Um, I had always been a Stephen King fan since I read him when I was 12, and he scared the beje- Jesus out of me, um, with The Boogeyman story.Jennie: Right.Caroline: Um, so when I took this position though I was told, “You're never gonna meet Stephen King. Don't even make contact with him.” I'm like, “Fine, you know, this is still a great job. I'm excited.” Um- ThanksJennie: for the money. Yeah.Caroline: Thanks for... You know, no, it's a wonderful fund. It was funded by the Harold Alfond Foundation, and it's to support the public humanities, which is an incredible mission.So, um, I get to give money away to people. You know, it's a great, great position, but I was not a horror specialist. And particu- a- and as an adult, I actually wasn't reading horror because it scares me too much. You know? Yeah, yeah. Um, but it had grabbed me when I was a teenager. So it was about four years into the [00:04:00] job when I got a call at home from Stephen King, which just, uh, uh, my jaw hit the floor.And he said, “You know, I think it's time we meet.” I'm like, you know, I, I really fan-girled because I really, I have so much admiration for him and respect. Um, I invited him to come talk to our students. He was brilliant, generous, funny, kind, and I felt so at ease that I felt like I could ask... You know, and I got to know him professionally.We had a good professional relationship that developed from there. When I had a sabbatical year coming up the next year- I could have written another Shakespeare book. I had another one in my head. I've written a bunch of them but I knew that he and Tabitha had just collected all of his manuscripts and put them in a climate-controlled space attached to their home in Bangor, and I thought, “You know, this is an incredible opportunity.I would love to dig in there and be the first one in there, and just read those early drafts of the books that scared me so much when I was a teenager, and try to just explore why. Why were they sticking in my head still?” Um, again, I am not a specialist in... I'm not a cognitive scientist. I'm not a [00:05:00] specialist in horror literature, but I'm obviously highly trained in how to do literary analysis and how to do archival work, not Shakespeare, because we don't have any of his works, but, you know, I, I understand what that process is.So back to your question about why I wanted to bring myself into it, which was, you know, I had been experimenting with first-person storytelling after I got tenure. You know, ‘cause it's a long process, Kate. Right. And most of my writing had been academic writing, but I really had always loved storytelling And I got a piece into the Modern Love column.I started to have some success with publishing my first-person stories, and I was like, “You know, I love this.” So when I had this opportunity to go into his archives, they generously said yes, was amazing. I thought, “You know, I really wanna tell this story. I don't wanna write an academic book. I want this to be the story of a literature scholar, but really the story about a scared kid.”Jennie: Yeah.Caroline: You know, you, you never lose that scare, you know, I don't... This is the thing. Fear has stuck with me with those stories [00:06:00] for 40 years. So I was fascinated, and I just wanted to understand how he had crafted the language so that it was sticking in my head still. Because when I was talking to people around, you know, whenever you mention Stephen King to people, you know, if they've read him, they remember specific lines and specific words, and I was like, “That's an extraordinary, um, 50 years on to have that power.”So, um- Well- Anyway. Yeah. Go ahead. I, I could talk about this forever, so you tell me- Oh, no, it's- ... where you wanted to pick up from this.Jennie: It's so good. Well, I have to tell you this funny anecdote, which is that my college roommate was from Bangor, Maine, and babysat his kids in that house.Caroline: Oh, that's insane.Jennie: So when I went to visit her, she drove me by that house.There you go. And I was like, “Oh, hell no- Yeah ... would I ever babysit in that house.” Like, it's-Caroline: It's ‘cause it's like a gothic, it's like straight out of Haunting of Hill House ...Jennie: actually, and like these spiderweb gates that, and you describe that in the [00:07:00] book and, and the- Yeah ... archives are in that house. They'reCaroline: in the house.They're attached to the back. I know. And it, it was so, it was, it was insane. It was like a full-on 360 experience writing this book. Um, and I, I knew, like, so I did the research for a year. I didn't even know if this would be a book. I just knew I wanted to have the opportunity to be in there because it, I knew it was a great opportunity, and I was so curious, you know?Yeah. So I, I came out of the year with just tons of notes and observations, but I didn't have a book, you know? Yeah. And then I started experimenting with writing a chapter, and I just, the storytelling just came forward and then when I got an agent and she, you know, s- I, I, I was able to get a contract based on a proposal and that one chapter I had written and I was really fortunate to have a fabulous editor, David Ebershoff, at Hogarth, who is just such a wonderful writer himself, and he really encouraged me to bring my voice in and bring my story in even [00:08:00] more.Um, so that's- And- ... that's the story of that.Jennie: Was it hard for you as a scholar to do that?Caroline: You know what? It was so freeing and so fun that it actually wasn't, you know? Because I, I knew this wasn't going to be an academic book, so once I let go of that- Yeah ... um, I was like, wow, I have the, and yet I have this skill set I can bring forward, and I knew that's what would make this unique.Um, but I can combine my two favorite ways of writing, ‘cause I do actually love writing literary criticism. Like it's, I get a thrill out of it. I wouldn't be doing it this long if I didn't get a thrill out of it, but I also love telling my own stories and drawing a reader in. And so for me it was like just a circus carnival.Like it was so fun to be able to do it. Once I had the permission and I had a contract, I was like, fine, you know? I, I, who am I writing this book for? I'm writing it for me, you know? Like this is just something I wanna do because I'm so passionate [00:09:00] about it and I, and I love Stephen King. And, um, once I got into it that way and wasn't thinking about who's gonna criticize me for this, like how will academics view this, I was like, I don't care.I just don't care. I know I've got a great story to tell that people are gonna love to read because there's so many people that love not just Stephen King, but people who love reading about how great books get written, you know? Yeah. And so that was the audience I had in my mind when I, when I was crafting it.It was really, in my mind, anybody who cares about books and writing. It doesn't have to be... So when you say, you're not the first person who's said to me, “I can't read your book,” or, “I can't read-” Oh, I'm so glad. “... Stephen King books,” you know, and I'm like, “That's okay. You can skip, you know, the parts that really scare you,” because there's plenty about just like that first chapter I wrote about Pet Sematary, just his sticky notes back and forth with his copy editor, which is so fun I think.You know, it's just like, wow.Jennie: Totally. Yeah. But the thing that you do is you- Allow yourself to confront that fear-Caroline: Yeah ...Jennie: [00:10:00] that, that I feel that the people can't, that can't read horror feel. You know, anybody that even allows themselves to be scared feels. And-Caroline: Yeah ...Jennie: and you, you do some very specific things, um, which I, I found fascinating, including tracking down on eBay the original copy of that book you read as a- Yeah, I wanted-as a teenager.Caroline: Yeah, that was part of the process for me, was I wanted to make sure I was reading... So before I would go into the archives for each work, and I'd spent like two... I only picked five, because I wanted to... First of all, I knew I wanted to make this personal. Um, and those were the five that scared me the most when I was a teenager.So I grew up in the ‘70s and the ‘80s as a teenager, so for me, it was in real time when the books were coming out practically. So it was- Yeah ... Carrie, Night Shift, The Shining, Salem's Lot, Pet Sematary. Um, I'm forgetting one of course. Uh, but I went -Jennie: The other one.Caroline: The other one. Had a huge impact on me. [00:11:00] So it was those five, and I, I knew those were the ones I was gonna do a deep dive into, and that I wanted to really re-engage with, and bring my whole self to.So I wanted to find the copies that I had read in the ‘70s and the early ‘80s. And fortunately, it's pretty easy to find them. Uh, so yeah, but eBay sometimes I had to go on, or go into a used bookstore and, you know, find the like actual 1979 paperback, you know.Jennie: Um- I mean, that- Um ... I just, there's some, there's so much to say about that because-Caroline: YeahJennie: like, I just, um- We, we just had a new bookcase built, um, which is something I've wanted to do well for eight years in this house. But it's a thing I've always wanted to have, which is like a grand bookcase, and it just was finished last week, and we had all the books packed up in storage, and we brought all the books back.Then we went through this discernment process of what goes [00:12:00] on those shelves. And I, you know, I had all those books from when I was a kid, even when I was a kid-kid, and they're yellow, and moldy and falling apart, and the covers aren't on, and they're taped and-Caroline: Yeah ...Jennie: eh, but I cannot let them go-Caroline: Yeah ...Jennie: because those...that was the object.Caroline: That's the object. This is what I feel sad for kids now, because they're not gonna have those same memories, um, of books. Yes. You know? And I don't think they stick in your head the same way if you don't have the full sensory embodied experience with a book.Jennie: Right. You know? Even when you open...I read on Kindle, which I love for so many reasons. Yeah. But you don't even see the cover.Caroline: You don't see the cover, right. And for me, it's so much. Like, I remember going to the Scholastic Book Fair and being like- Yes ... “I'm getting Summer of My German S- Soldier because Christy McNichol's on the cover,” you know?Yes. Yes. So yeah, that was part of the journey for me was I did wanna just [00:13:00] reconnect with those books again, try to h- and as much as you can, you know, reexperience the feelings of f- like The Shining, I actually... the only one I still have from 1977 is the actual Shining that I read. Um, and that's, for me, that woman in room 217.Well, I know you haven't read it ‘cause you're probably... What? But, um, it, that particular one I still have from, from when I was growing up. Um, and I love that I still have it, and it still has the photo... You know, it's the version that has the photo inserts that includes the Kubrick film photos. Oh, okay.Jennie: Okay.Yeah, yeah.Caroline: And I read it before I saw the film, so I remember being- 15 reading it and then seeing the pictures and being like you know? And that's part of the experience, but it wasn't, it's different than seeing the film, you know? And I really, I wanted to write this book as a love letter to language and to books, and not to film.Like, there's, that's a whole other category I think that enters people's brains in totally different ways. It's a very different experience. For me it's about, like going back to your original question [00:14:00] about like why, why, why do stories cause fear, and like what's the value perhaps in that? Yeah. That was something I came to after this long journey really, and talking to people and thinking about why.And also by understanding and reading more about Stephen King's books and talking to him about them, and realizing for him how much these stories are rooted in personal experiences or fears of grief and loss. And- Yes ... that was really profound for me. And like The Night Shift, which is the ur-text that I start with, ‘cause that's the one I read when I was 12, and that's his first collection of short stories.It came out in 1978. It's 20 short stories. But he ends it with a story about his mother dying, and it's, I mean, it's thinly veiled autobiography. It's about a man who's watching his mother die in the hospital. Um, but it's clearly a mirror of his own experience losing his mother when he was 26. And I'm like, wow, what's that doing in a collection of horror stories?[00:15:00] And it's like, what? ‘Cause that is of course, at least for me and I think for a lot of people, that's the core fear we first have, is that where's mommy, right? Yeah. Right? You lose the person who's in charge of taking care of you, and if you're lucky, does it well and with care. Um, but even if it's not, like Carrie, you know, the more I was looking through the Carrie drafts, I was like, right, he's really homing in on Carrie calling out for her mother even though her mother's terrible and abusive to her, right?So it's, there's just this, I don't know. It's a long way around to say I think horror, and he writes about this really eloquently, is a way for us to metabolize our deepest fears. Um, and to look at trauma not head-on but sideways. Um, and he writes about that, um, a number of different places in a really powerful way.He's just such an extraordinary human. You know, he's been thinking about this and for so long.Jennie: Yeah. Yeah. So, so your willingness to [00:16:00] confront that, those particular fear, fears in your own self and on behalf of the reader, really puts you in it. I mean, like you, there's a really lovely moment where you are reading I think it's, I think it's Pet Sematary, reading the actual book, and you have to turn it over so you- Yeahdon't see, like on your nightstand so you don't see the cover. I'mCaroline: scared, I'm scared of the cover, right, still.Jennie: Yeah.Caroline: Yeah.Jennie: And then there's moments, se- several where you're driving And you're sort of holding your breath while you drive past a place that he writes about or, or- Mm-hmm ... you know, um, well you have to tell the story, I'm sure every interviewer asks you about the, um, the doorknob in the archive.You have to, like, I was-Caroline: Yeah, not too many people have asked me about that, but I'm like, that to me was the scary moment-Jennie: Wait, shut up ... the most, theCaroline: most sturdy. I'm like, wh- uh, why did that happen? But of course, I mean, there's a reason why it happened. It's, it's, it [00:17:00] automatically locks if, you know, the, if you- Okaydon't lock it So let's, let's play- So but it just happened that we were inside the archive room. It was me and, and Julie Ugli, who is their assistant, who was helping me through this whole process. And I know, and I was, like, literally holding the first page of the first draft of The Boogeyman, the story that had scared me so badly when I was 12, about a monster that comes out of closets, and we're like in this room.And the, the archive room, it actually, it almost feels like a closet. It's not huge at all. You know, it's just-Jennie: Yeah ...Caroline: top to bottom, ceiling to floor stacked shelving with, you know, boxes of materials. And yeah, and we were in there, and I'm holding the first page, and the lock closes on its own. It just goes...And I'm like, I'm looking at Julie, I'm like, “What is, what's happening?” We don't have our cell phones with us. I'm like, “Are we stuck in here? Like, what's gonna happen?”Jennie: In the scary archive- In this, I was terrified ... in the back of the scary house. Like-Caroline: I know, I know. It was like, you can't make this stuff up.That's why I was like, I [00:18:00] couldn't wait, when I finally got a chance to write the book and sit down and write, I was like, I can't wait to tell these stories, because they just... I, I'm not a fiction writer. Like, I, I have such mad respect for- I don't know about that ... well, I've m- We'll see I don't know. I have mad respect for people who can write fiction.For me, I only can write what I know and exper- So I'm like, ah. But these stories were just so amazing. Or like when I was reading The Shining, like the first draft of The Shining, which is crazy. I mean, it's so different from the published version. And like getting to the woman in room 217, and like reading th- and literally my head w- like I thought I was having a stroke.Like it was like, like... And it's like, and then I find an interview where Stephen King writes about how he was scared to go back to that scene when he was revising it, the book, because he was dreading it. And I was like, oh, my God, have I just like had some kind of telepathic experience with Stephen King?Like- Right ... across time, space, and yeah, it was amazing.Jennie: Well, yeah. I mean, [00:19:00] it's just, um, uh, I actually made myself go through the whole book skipping giant chunks.Caroline: I feel so badly I put you through this.Jennie: I know. I, I feel like why, I kept saying, “Why? Why did I think this was a good idea?” Um, and it- I mean, even just tangentially, I, I don't know.It's interesting. I have, I'm sure you have this too, anybody who reads a lot or spends a lot of time with words, you have a capacity to sort of pay half attention, if that makes sense.Caroline: Mm-hmm.Jennie: Um, like you c- could sort of look at it without letting it all the way in. Yeah. But I, I just was, I just was riveted by the thread of, of your story and your putting yourself through that as a scholar and a human.But, but then some really cool things happen, and I, and I have flagged, um... Do you, [00:20:00] w- would you mind reading a tiny piece? It's- No, not at all ... it's on page 82, and it's the p- the paragraph that starts, “These manuscripts.”Caroline: Yeah.Jennie: That would be amazing.Caroline: Absolutely. So this is actually the moment I just described to you, where my head was like, I got...Oh, actually, I had just discovered the last 150 pages of the original Shining manuscript in a random folder in the archives, and I was like, “What is this doing here?” And I was getting obsessive about the manuscripts at this point, clearly- Yeah. Yeah ... just like the main character in The Shining, Jack Torrance, who gets obsessed with the manu- with the papers in the basement of the Overlook Hotel.But here we go. “These manuscripts are definitely getting into my head, and not just its rational part. In his memoir, when King describes books as being a uniquely portable magic, he doesn't specify what kind of magic. What if manuscripts can absorb and store more than just ink and words? [00:21:00] What if their pages can pass on dark energy along with dark stories?Ghosts have more than one way of making sure their stories are heard, of ensuring that the past is not forgotten, but rather pressed into our minds, even if we wrench our heads off the pillow and refuse to listen.” And that last is a reference to my, I used to see a ghost when I was five, and I write about that in the book too.Jennie: I mean, when I read that, I was like, “That's, that's me.” Like, these ghosts and horrors are pressing themselves into my mind, and I'm refusing to listen, and they still, they still do. And, um, King's stories in particular are so iconic, you can't really escape them. Like, you, you know the scenarios, you know the characters, you know-Caroline: YeahJennie: you know. And, and so it was interesting for me reading this book that that described my [00:22:00] experience where I was both repelled and magnetized at the same time.Caroline: That's beautiful the way you just put that. I mean, I think that is exactly our relationship also, of course, to our own fears. You know, again, what makes these stories endure, and I didn't go into this book thinking like, “This is a book about promoting Stephen King,” and, you know- Rightlike, I don't work for Stephen King. I just want to put that out there. Right. He, you know, he graciously agreed to let me go into the archives. He's been very generous about answering all my questions I had about the manuscripts, but he never at any point was like, “You can't say this,” or, “This is how you're supposed to say this.”So, but what I came away with after this process was exactly what you're describing, why we need these stories, why they endure, actually, is because they tap into our very real human fears. It's not about the monsters. It's about the grief and loss that's coming for all of us if we live long enough, you know?So you, and you have to at some point confront that, you know? So if it's- Yeah ... you can [00:23:00] try to run away from it, but it's coming, and that's part of being human. That's the human experience, obviously. Not to be glib, but it's like-Jennie: Yeah ...Caroline: you will experience loss. You will experience grief. And if these stories help you metabolize that or have a cathartic experience with that feeling without having to actually experience your worst fear, right?Um, like Aristotle says, it's cathartic, right? It's you watch a play, a, a tragedy because you experience a catharsis.Jennie: And did you, did you get to that in your own process?Caroline: That's a really good question. Um- You know, I, I think I became more aware of it. You know, I am, you know, and I write about this very openly in the book, that I was an extremely anxious little kid, um, which is part of why I think the boogeyman triggered me in the particular way it did, you know.Um, and that I grew into a pretty [00:24:00] anxious adult, you know? Yeah. I think anxiety is one of those things that, you know, I... Again, I was born in the ‘60s, so we didn't have this language for this back then. Like, my parents wouldn't have known to call me an anxious child, you know? Right. They probably would've said, “Oh, she's shy,” or, “She's whatever.”Um, so I think I, you know, like, and I as an adult, I think I've, I've found ways to manage it pretty well, but I am definitely a control freak. Like, that's part of how I manage it. I shouldn't use that language, but you know, it's like I, I like to just control what I can control, and that makes me feel that I can put the anxiety at bay.So I will say I think it's been interesting for me, Nick, now when I have those moments that are my worst fear moments that sometimes still will creep up on me just even though when I think I've figured it out, like doom s- doom scenarios. I tend to go to doom scenarios. So, like, if I can't reach... Uh, I will say Life360 has been, like, the best invention on the planet for me-with my two kids [00:25:00] and my husband. I'm like, “I know exactly where everyone is.” Yeah. It has saved me a lot of worry. Sometimes Life360 doesn't work, or sometimes a person still doesn't answer the phone, and then I have to manage my anxie- And then it's like... So I will say it's been interesting going through this process and having to confront or revisit the core of what scares me and, like, why that impacts, you know, why certain moments come forward for me still.So I think, yeah, I think it has helped me to a degree. Like, I can recognize it more clearly now. I'm like, “Oh, right, that's why I'm scared of that,” you know? Um-Jennie: That's so cool.Caroline: Yeah.Jennie: And it feels like that's the, the, um, the transformation in the book is you're exploring how that actually works and the language and the stories.Mm-hmm. But you're, you're also exploring how it works in your own self, how it did when you were young, how it does now- Yeah ... these moments when you're scared. So it- Mm-hmm ... there's such [00:26:00] a depth to it and, I mean, I just, uh, even in my half reading of it, I just loved it. Thank you. And, um, there's something that happens That's kind of crazy, which is, so you're a Shakespeare scholarCaroline: Mm-hmmJennie: And I ha- I, I know from reading Steve, a- about Stephen King, from reading his book On Writing, of course, and, um, interviews and such that, uh, I'm, I'm probably gonna say this in a disrespectful way, and I don't mean it to be so, but the, the easiest way I can describe it is that he's always had sort of a chip on his shoulder that he's just a popular writer and not taken seriously in a literary way.Mm. I don't know if that's, if that is fair to say, but that's how I'm saying it. Uh,Caroline: yeah.Jennie: And, um, what, what I found incredible was that [00:27:00] here comes this Shakespeare scholar into his archives doing proper scholarly archiver, arch- archival work, and there's this moment when you begin to see Shakespearean themes in his, in his work, and you can't ignore it, and particularly in, in Carrie and- Yeahparticularly around exactly the thing you were wrestling with, which is like a young girl's- I don't know, sense of, of not being fitting in the world or, um-Caroline: Yeah ...Jennie: right? And so that, um, there's, on page, since you have the book in your hand, um, I think it's pageCaroline: 202. Mm-hmm.Jennie: And it refers back to that passage you just read about portable magic.It's the one that's I remembered.Caroline: [00:28:00] Right. Okay. So this is going back to when I first was, um, I was in the final round of the job for the Stephen E. King Chair in Literature, and I was working on a book about Shakespeare's, the girls in Shakespeare's plays and world and teenage girls and their cognition.Like, the how were people during Shakespeare's day thinking about girls' brains? Yeah. So I'd been working on this for 10 years. Um, and then I was getting ready to give my job talk. This was the first time Stephen King and Shakespeare came together for me, and it was getting ready, and this, again, this is an authentic story, like write what you know.So I was getting ready for the job talk. I remembered that King's 1974 novel, Carrie, featured a 16-year-old girl whose telekinetic powers are unleashed when she gets her first period in the school shower. I started rereading it, and within a few pages came across an uncanny phrase. When she's walking home after being dismissed early, Carrie feels her brain flexing in a new way, [00:29:00] as if her powers have been waiting below the surface for her to reach, quote, “mental puberty.”I couldn't have wordsmithed this dynamic cognitive change better myself. In the last part of my job talk, I used the phrase to connect the brain work of Juliet Capulet, who's described as being two weeks away from seeing the change of 14 years, to Carrie's newly activated adolescent mind. It felt like a moment of pure portable magic between Stephen King, Shakespeare, and me.Jennie: Ugh, so beautiful.Caroline: Oh, thank you. Yeah. I mean, that was just so gobsmacking. Like, when that happened, I was like, I ca- I can't believe it, but yeah.Jennie: And then, now I may be getting some of the things wrong here, but then you- You realize, is it Carrie that, that you realize he was, you thought he was emulating a play, a Shakespeare play?Caroline: I think you're thinking of Shining. I mean, definitely at the end of the Carrie [00:30:00] chapter I return to, I did notice echoes of Macbeth, and I was convinced that that must have been what he was thinking about. And, and what's funny is, so one of the conversations I got to have with him, I mean, he's so generous with his time, one of my last conversations with him was about the end of Carrie, and that's a book that he actually doesn't like very much.You know, it was his first published novel, he was 26, and he's like, “I think that was written by a young man who thought he knew more than he did.” So he's, it's not a book that he goes back to. He recognizes it's important, and it's important to him, but, ‘cause it started his whole career, his whole trajectory.Um, but he didn't particularly, he hasn't returned to it. Yeah. So that was a fun chance for me to sort of talk to him and say, “Hey, you know what? I think you should maybe go back,” ‘cause it's it's, there's a lot of Shakespeare in there. Anyway, but the Shining chapter, what was fascinating, so there's this first draft, which I, I write a lot about, called The Shine, that's in the archives, with a totally different ending.Um, and when I looked at it, [00:31:00] he'd also divided it into acts and scenes, like Roman numeral acts and little- Mm ... Roman numeral scenes. And I was like, “This, what is this? This is like a Shakespeare play.” Like, that's what it looked like. And then sure enough, I found out he was imagining, he was thinking of a Shakespeare tragedy when he wrote The Shining.And that was the first moment where I was like, “What? This is insane.” Like, this- Yeah ... like, ob- obviously that became, for me, the story I wanted to tell about that particular set of manuscripts, was sort of uncovering, like, what's the Shakespeare play? Like, what's the tragedy? And I didn't wanna ask him because I didn't want- I wanted to go in with my mind clear, like, of any outside influence.I just wanted to see what my Shakespeare brain, because I'm so embedded in Shakespeare. I also have a Shakespeare podcast I do with my best friend. Like, we're, I'm always thinking about Shakespeare and how it relates to everyday life. You know, and so I'm like, “Well, how does it relate to The Shining?” Which is, like, an ur-American text.Like, this, like, say what you want about horror, [00:32:00] like- I'd be shocked if people don't know what The Shining's about, even if they haven't read it even if they haven't seen the film. Like, you probably know something about The Shining, right? Right. So I was like, if there's a Shakespeare tragedy at the foundation of this, you know.And here's the thing about Stephen King that I came to learn, again, reading all of his notes and finding these edits, and I did find traces of Macbeth in the first draft of The Shine, um, that he ended up taking out. So I was like, “Oh, is it Macbeth? It feels like it could be Macbeth.” There's so many things it has in common with it, with hallucinations and with baby bashing.And, you know, all of these horrible things that are in Macbeth are certainly in that book. Um, but I really wanted to go in, like, just on an adventure, like, see what I saw. So I didn't ask him which chi- tragedy until I was fully done with all my research and I felt like I had it all done. And that's when he drops that he was thinking of Hamlet.And once he said that, of course, it became so ... I mean, I [00:33:00] had seen traces, there were references to Ophelia that also didn't make it into the final published draft. So you wouldn't know this. This is the beauty of archival work, like you're gonna see things that other people will never know about unless you tell the story.That's why I felt so passionate about this. Like, “I need to tell people-” Yeah ... “that Ophelia was in the first draft, that he was thinking of Ophelia.” ‘Cause of course, you know, again, even if you don't know The Shining, the woman in the tub, the woman in the bathtub, like a drowned woman in a tub, like ah, Ophelia.Yeah. Like Ophelia's another one of those ur, like she's so, she's such a part of our cultural air, right? I mean, like no matter what country you're in. Right. There's a reason Taylor Swift has a whole, you know, song The Fate of Ophelia. Like people know what that means. Um, so I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is, this is incredible.This is even deeper than I thought it was gonna be.” Um, but also it made me appreciate how much that book is about intergenerational trauma. Um, and it's not ... So he doesn't like the Kubrick film [00:34:00] for reasons that, you know, a couple different reasons. One is that it flattens out the character of Jack Torrance, and Jack Torrance is an abused child himself, and he passes on that abuse to his son, Danny, right?Um, but you wouldn't know that from Kubrick's film. While Hamlet, of course, is about a father's ghost coming forward. Like, “The past is a ghost,” King writes, which is so f- powerful, right? Um, here's this ghost saying, “You need to kill for me.”Jennie: Yeah.Caroline: Yeah. And that's what happens to Jack. Yeah, so anyway, that's a long way to say that wasEach chapter was my favorite in different ways, but that one I loved being able to do the deep Shakespeare dive.Jennie: And was that ... You know, so I started that question by saying I, I had heard or understood or maybe inferred that, um, you know, King himself had this sort of desire- Okay ... to be taken more seriously.Was that, that must have been, I don't know, powerful for both you and him, uh, to [00:35:00] come to that? Not like, “Oh, you're the only person that's ever made him feel that way” or-Caroline: Yeah,Jennie: no,Caroline: I agree ... or agree with that, but. Like I, yeah. And, um, I mean, I will say I think part of the reason he was always really ... I mean, first of all, he's just so generous, and any writer who's ever worked with him has the same experience.Like he just gives his time. He just loves writing and writers so much that he will just, he'll just t- like any email I would send him, he'd write back in like an hour with a response. The part about how he feels about academia, you know, and I never directly asked him that because I didn't wanna ... You know, if he wanted to bring it up, great.But I think- Yeah ... my, after going on this journey with him, he clearly loves talking about- literature. He's the most well-read person I've ever met. I'm just gonna say that hands down. Like, the guy reads- Really? ... cons- constantly and if you read his early works, like even when he was 17, he wrote The Long Walk, okay, which just came out as a film, [00:36:00] and in that, he's citing T.S.Eliot, he's cit- he's citing Poe at 17. Okay? So he's, he, he, this, he comes by this honestly. He's not just trying to seem smart. Like, he literally is constantly reading and it's clear when you read his manuscripts or when you read his published books, he's making references to all, whether it's Shirley Jackson or Wallace Stevens or, you know, uh, he's so capacious in his knowledge of literature.And, like, just a couple months ago, he sent me an email, I don't, I can't remember, we were talking about something about Salem's Lot, and he was like, “Yeah, when I was writing Salem's Lot,” which again, this is 1975 when he's writing Salem's Lot, so that's a long time ago. He's like, “I was really into James Dickey's poetry.”Jennie: Whoa.Caroline: You know, who was an American no, you know, poet laureate. Uh, he's like, “And I was reading everything I could read of, of his and then I read Deliverance, and then I went back to his poetry, and that really impacted how I wrote the chapters [00:37:00] about the Lot,” which if you've read Salem's Lot, has some very lyrical, poetic chapters about the town, like, “The town knew about darkness.The town had its secrets and knew how to kept it.” And then he, like, sends me the entire poem that he was thinking about that James Dickey wrote. So I mean, it's, he's, and it's not performative. He's not, like, he has nothing. He doesn't need to prove anything to me, you know?Jennie: Right, to anyone, yeah.Caroline: He just literally loves, he loves literature.Like, this guy, he loves poetry. I mean, he actually writes poetry. He wrote poetry as an undergraduate. Uh, it was actually the core start for him of The Stand, was a poem he wrote called The Dark Man one day when he was, like, hungover in the school, like, cafeteria. Like, so it's like he, he's been thinking about literature and living with literature and, uh, since he was a teenager, if not earlier.His mom brought him, uh, Bram Stoker out of the public library when he was nine, so I mean, the guy- Whoa ... ‘cause he asked for it. He asked for Dracula. [00:38:00] I wasn't reading Dracula when I was nine. Were you? I mean-Jennie: No,Caroline: no. I was reading Little House on the Prairie. I mean-Jennie: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Wow. Wow. So- I mean, this book, again, it's called Monsters in the Archives: My Year of Fear with Stephen King by Carolyn Bicks.It's just incredible, whether you're a King fan, whether you're a horror fan, um, but for sure for all writers, which are all our listeners. If you can, if you can bear it.It's very specific, um, a very specific- specific exploration of, of how good writing works really. Yeah. Right. And, and how you... You know, there's always that perennial question of how do you get emotion on the page? How do you make your reader feel something? And you, you show it very specifically, and I wanted so badly [00:39:00] to, to get into the details, and I, and I, I just, I just couldn't.Um, maybe someday, but, um, I just, I just can't recommend it enough for, for, um, this audience and, um, you know, anyone who's interested in any of these things we've talked about.Caroline: Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. And I will say, like, the Pet Sematary chapter, which is the first one, that was the first day I was in the archives.One of the things I discovered about him day one was how much attention he pays to word sounds. So I think for any writer interested in sort of doing a deep dive into, like, how one word change, right- Yeah ... can make a difference, you know? Yeah. And I didn't appreciate that about his writing until I went in there and saw his notes to the copy editor where he's like, “Nope, the word's clitter, not clatter.This is why.” You know? Like,Jennie: he's- There's a, um- Yeah ... yeah, there's a book I love, it's probably right behind me, um, called The Artful Edit by Susan Bell, in which she [00:40:00] shows examples of that kind of very careful change in, um, The Gre- The Great Gatsby and The English Patient and various works of, of literature, and your, your whole book is like that.It's, it's just amazing. Um- Thank you ... so is the next book gonna be the Shakespeare one you had thought of before? Or are you gonna- ... go in the, in the personal direction?Caroline: You know, it's such a good question. I think right now I'm just taking a break, you know, because I'm the kind... Like, I immerse myself in a project, and this has been so all-consuming.Um, and I'm back to doing my Everyday Shakespeare podcast, which I love and I missed. Um, so I'm doing that. And I, I really don't like to think too far ahead about what I'm going to write. I like to have it come organically.Jennie: Yeah.Caroline: Um, so I could go back into the archives. I could write another one of these kinds of books, but I don't know if that's the [00:41:00] right thing for me right now.Jennie: Yeah.Caroline: Um, I want to make sure whatever I write next- You know, I loved writing this book so much. It's my favorite... I mean, it's, it was such a powerful experience for me, um, because I could bring my personal experiences into it and my scholarly self into it. I don't... You know, it's gonna be hard to recreate that.Yeah. I think it can be done, but I don't wanna force it. Yeah. So I'm gonna wait and see what the next, what the next oneJennie: is. Don't you, don't you love the interviewer who's like, “Hey, congratulations. You wrote a book. What, what's your nextCaroline: one?” What are you working on now? What are you doing now? I know. And I get that.I'm like-Jennie: So mean ...Caroline: I'm just, I'm just reading books I wanna read. I'm doing my laundry. I'm getting to know my dog again. You know?Jennie: Oh, wow. Well, thankCaroline: you. But, you know, it's a fair question. Yeah.Jennie: Yeah, yeah. Thank you for coming and chatting about this, and for writing such a cool book. And- Thank you ... um, I'm looking forward to seeing what you do next.Caroline: Thank you, Jennie. It was a [00:42:00] pleasure.Jennie: Well, for our listeners, until next time, stop playing small and write like it matters.The #amwriting podcast is produced by Andrew Perilla. Our intro music, aptly titled Unemployed Monday, was written and played by Max Cohen. Andrew and Max were paid for their time and their creative output because everyone deserves to be paid for their work This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amwriting.substack.com/subscribe
My guest on this episode is Ben Francis, author of the very compelling book titled Careful the Spell You Cast — How Stephen Sondheim Extended the Range of the American Musical. Sondheim is without a doubt one of the most studied, examined, and analyzed Broadway creators of all time. In fact, we have done quite a bit of that right here on Broadway Nation. However, as you will hear, Ben Francis contends that in spite of all of that investigation, Sondheim continues to be very misunderstood. He is often labeled as being cynical and pessimistic, but Francis instead argues that Sondheim firmly belongs to the “Broadway aspirational tradition” — a tradition that celebrates dreams of a better life — and he suggests that Sondheim's shows are to a great extent are a continuation of the work of his mentor Oscar Hammerstein II. Ben Francis' other works include contributions to the Oxford Handbook Of Sondheim Studies, the Oxford Handbook of British Musicals, and the Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Music, as well as Christopher Hampton: Dramatic Ironist Become A PATRON of Broadway Nation! This episode is made possible in part by the generous support of our newest Patrons: Andy Wigginton and Mark Stanton. If you would like to help support the work of Broadway Nation I will information at the end of the podcast about how you too can become a Patron. If you are a fan ofBroadway Nation, I invite you too to become a PATRON! For a just $7.00 a month you will receive exclusive access to never-before-heard, unedited versions of many of the discussion that I have with my guests — in fact I often record nearly twice as much conversation as ends up in the edited versions. And you will also have access to additional in-depth conversations with my frequent co-host Albert Evans that have not been featured on the podcast. And all patrons receive special “on-air” shout-outs and acknowledgement of your vital support of this podcast. And If you are very enthusiastic about Broadway Nation there are additional PATRON levels that come with even more benefits. If you would like to support the work of Broadway Nation and receive these exclusive member benefits, please just click on this link: https://broadwaynationpodcast.supercast.tech/ Thank you in advance for your support! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Every day is filled with choices—and the most important choice you'll ever make is who you will serve.Join Ernest P. Wordle for a hilarious collection of adventures as he reminds everyone—from a confused "Shakespeare" to Susie Q and his prank-loving friend Darryl—that God has given each of us the freedom to choose. Through plenty of laughs, memorable characters, and Bible-based lessons, kids discover that choosing to follow Jesus is the greatest decision they can ever make.Based on Joshua 24:15, this fun Christian episode teaches children that following God isn't something anyone can do for us—we each must decide for ourselves. Kids will also learn that true leadership begins by obeying God's Word and putting Jesus first in everyday life.Perfect for Christian families, homeschoolers, churches, Christian schools, Sunday School, Children's ministries, and Bible clubs, this entertaining episode helps kids understand how to make wise, God-honoring decisions in their everyday lives.In this episode, kids will learn:Why God gives us the freedom to chooseWhat Joshua meant by "Choose this day whom you will serve"How following Jesus begins with a personal decisionWhy obedience to God's Word makes us godly leadersHow to make wise, Christ-centered choices every dayBible Memory Verse:"Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve... But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." — Joshua 24:15Perfect for ages 9–13 who enjoy:Christian storiesBible adventuresFunny faith-based charactersBible memory versesChristian podcasts for kidsChristian cartoonsFamily devotional timeCharacter-building Bible lessonsSubscribe to Adventures: Bible Truths in Action for more exciting Christian stories that help kids know Jesus, love God's Word, build strong character, and put biblical truth into action every day.
This is the All Local afternoon update for July 17, 2026.
(Jul 17, 2026) Jefferson County has launched its long-awaited public transit system, the final piece of a regional bus network connecting the western half of the North Country; we head to the southern Adirondacks for a short hike up Stewart Mountain for big views of the Chestertown area; and we preview a Shakespeare in the Park performance in Peru.
Drop us a note about the podcast. A few lines from Psalm 138 can hit differently when life feels dangerous, unfair, or out of control. We start there, then we face a grim headline out of Bel Air, Maryland: the rape and murder of Rachel Moran and the arrest that followed after a DNA match. It is heavy, but we do not linger for shock. We use it to ask a harder question: what do our actions, votes, and loyalties actually reveal about our character and priorities?From that tension, we turn to prayer and Scripture with a clear focus on the gospel. We read from Acts 13 as Paul traces God's faithfulness through Israel's history and points to Jesus as the promised Savior, risen from the dead. The takeaway is simple and uncompromising: forgiveness of sins comes through Jesus Christ alone. Not a denomination. Not a personality. Not politics. Just Christ, received by faith and marked by repentance and a changed life.We also bring it down to the daily level with a practical Bible reading plan: Proverbs. One chapter a day, five minutes, real wisdom that shows up in decision-making, relationships, and self-control. Along the way, we honor Medal of Honor recipient George Ham Cannon for courage under fire, then we close with civic warning and responsibility through a James Garfield quote and a reminder that Scripture and founding documents can be twisted when hearts are not honest.If this conversation helps you think clearly and live faithfully, subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find the show.#Bible#DailyScripture #JamesGarfield Support the showThe American Soul Podcasthttps://www.buzzsprout.com/1791934/subscribeCountryside Book Serieshttps://www.amazon.com/Countryside-Book-J-T-Cope-IV-ebook/dp/B00MPIXOB2 America's Christian Heritage Podcasthttps://www.buzzsprout.com/2622483
NOTE: When you sign up for Patreon, PLEASE do it through a web browser (Safari, Chrome, etc.) and NOT an app on your iPhone. The Apple app charges 30% !!! If you just click on the link above, it should be fine. In today's episode, Becket Cook sits down with Larry Alex Taunton, author, columnist for The Federalist, and host of the podcast Ideas Have Consequences, to discuss his insightful article, "Outrage Over Texas Teaching the Bible is Anti-Intellectual." They unpack the Texas State Board of Education's decision to include Bible sections in the K-12 curriculum, exploring why this move is essential for understanding Western civilization, literature, history, and moral foundations. From Forest McDonald's lessons on intellectual honesty to the Bible's influence on figures like Shakespeare, Faulkner, Mark Twain, and the Declaration of Independence, this conversation reveals how biblical literacy shapes everything from capitalism and science to human rights and restraint on evil impulses. Larry Alex Taunton and Becket Cook also address leftist outrage, Drag Queen Story Hour, Richard Dawkins' evolving views on Christianity vs. Islam, and why removing the Bible from public schools has led to cultural decline since 1963. Perfect for fans of Christian apologetics, education reform, Western history, and conservative thought, this episode makes a compelling case for the Bible as the "prequel to everything" in the West. The Article: https://thefederalist.com/2026/07/03/outrage-over-texas-teaching-the-bible-is-anti-intellectual/ Larry Taunton's Youtube: https://youtube.com/@ideashaveconsequences?si=GI8Hjsm5AAb7Pv06 The Becket Cook Show Ep. 247 Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.
More of my interview with 'The Five Star Weekend' star D'Arcy Carden. D'Arcy recalls attending the 2020 Emmys while nominated for her role as Janet in ‘The Good Place' and we discuss Shakespeare fears, babysitting drama and how we measure success at this point in our lives. This episode was recorded at Wife and the Somm in Glassell Park, Los Angeles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Tonight's sleep story is Macbeth by William Shakespeare, retold by Edith Nesbit. You know the story of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth and their thirst for power at any cost originally written by William Shakespeare. This adaptation by Edith Nesbit condenses and simplifies the story but the end remains the same. If you're still awake, the second story is Measure for Measure. A story you might not be as familiar with. Support the podcast and enjoy ad-free and bonus episodes. Try FREE for 7 days on Apple Podcasts. For other podcast platforms go to https://justsleeppodcast.com/supportOr, you can support with a one time donation at buymeacoffee.com/justsleeppodOrder your copy of the Just Sleep book! https://www.justsleeppodcast.com/book/If you like this episode, please remember to follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to your favourite podcasts. Also, share with any family or friends that might have trouble drifting off.Goodnight! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
In its nearly three-thousand-year history, the Odyssey has undergone as many twists and turns as its protagonist does on his journey home to Ithaca. Its origins as oral poetry suggest countless revisions before it was even put into text—and many more followed, as translators have wrestled with how best to express Homer's ancient Greek verse in their own languages. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz consider the latest rendition, a film adaptation by the director Christopher Nolan. The movie's two-hundred-and-fifty-million-dollar budget, A-list cast, and use of cutting-edge IMAX technology make it maximalist in every sense of the word. It's elicited glowing reception from early viewers—and faced preëmptive criticism from the right. Drawing on the scholar Emily Wilson's 2017 translation of the epic, Nolan has modernized the dialogue; his focus on the erosion of societal values also speaks directly to the anxieties of our era, in which so many norms and institutions feel newly precarious. “The Odyssey persists because the world does keep on evanescing behind us,” Cunningham says. “The question of how to move on is always fresh.” Read, watch, and listen with the critics: “The Odyssey” (2026) “Planet of the Apes” (1968) “Oppenheimer” (2023) “Troy” (2004) “Why the Odyssey Keeps Defeating Filmmakers,” by David Denby (The New Yorker) “L'Odissea” (1968) Emily Wilson's translation of the Odyssey Robert Fagles's translation of the Odyssey Daniel Mendelsohn's translation of the Odyssey “The Dark Knight” (2008) Shakespeare's “Hamlet” New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts. Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker which explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Imagine a dark warehouse. Racks and racks of devices with wires, tubes, and electronics sticking out. The next AI data center? No. This is Lila Sciences‘ dream for the future of science. A dark warehouse full of AI-guided robotics and lab equipment, cranking out new experiments 24/7, building toward a scientific superintelligence.Their automated lab is almost hypnotizing to watch. They have floating plates zipping around on Wall-E-esque tracks, used vision-language models to control Windows 95 boxes, and created the world's largest collection of voided warranties. In the process they've built a massive library of scientific reasoning tokens. Over 10 trillion of them, all experimentally validated.No warranties were voided in the making of this videoTo say Lila is ambitious is an understatement. Their goal is a scientific superintelligence wired directly into the wet lab. They are all in on the bitter lesson, and the thesis follows from it: a lab is an infinite token generator. Produce data at scale, and the synergies give you a general reasoner that can tackle any scientific problem. They are committing hard. Biology, chemistry, drug discovery, and materials science, all at the same time. Time will tell if it works, but it is an exciting hypothesis.In our latest episode we sat down with Lila's very own Andy Beam (CTO) and Rafa Gómez-Bombarelli (CSO, physical sciences) and went on a journey through the possibilities of AI-run science, almost as wide-ranging as Lila's goals.Did we mention they do both materials science and biology? In the same AI science factory? Same time, same lab, same AI. Finally a guest who can settle a long-running debate we've had amongst ourselves: is biology or materials science harder?Watch to find out!We discuss:* The internet is spent, science is next. Why Lila thinks the scientific method is the last untapped internet-scale dataset, and why they treat RL as a data generation mechanism with nature as the verifier.* The lab as a data center. Instruments as nodes on a graph, a magnetically levitating “PCI bus” transport layer between them, orchestration as a slurm queue. Andy is not short on analogies.* Why Lila insists it is not an automation company. They optimize for flexibility and generalizability over raw throughput, which means humans stay below the API line wherever automating does not pay.* Your experiment has a runtime. We put Escalante Bio's question to Andy: if science is the token generator, what is the runtime of your data collection? His answer, in short, is that you cannot make the ribosome go faster. Why Lila bets on fast round-over-round iteration rather than big noisy multiplexed screens, and how Rafa's team rebuilt a gas sorption measurement to run roughly 2,500x faster.* What is actually in 10 trillion scientific tokens. Not sequences. Experimentally verified reasoning traces, a kind of data that Andy argues exists on the internet in quantities that round to zero.* Breadth as a path to depth. Small molecule chemistry priors transferring to metal organic frameworks for carbon capture, and the claim that the general model beats domain-specific models sample for sample.* If you have the data, what do you need the model for? Sri Kosuri's koan about the ML-for-drug-discovery business model, and Andy's answer: the coding model got better because it also read Shakespeare and carnitas recipes.* The serendipity they want to automate. Emily Whitehead survived the first pediatric CAR-T cure only because the doctor treating her happened to know, from pediatric arthritis, which antibody would blunt her IL-6 response. Roll that dice again and you probably lose her. Breadth is how you stop depending on luck.* Move 37 for catalysts. Model suggestions for platinum-group-free electrocatalysts that went from boring, to what a 40-paper expert called stupid, to the best performers they have made.* Six months to in vivo CAR-T data in non-human primates, and the zero-FTE virtual startup commercial model that fell out of it. For context on why that number is startling, AbbVie paid $2.1B for Capstan on the strength of preclinical in vivo CAR-T data.* You cannot have scientific superintelligence if you are just a good test taker. Ken Stanley, who wrote Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned, runs open-endedness at Lila. RL at scale gives you a ruthlessly Vulcan problem solver. Machine creativity is a different thing, and it is the part nobody has solved.* The chain of thought is an unreliable narrator. The model reasons in latent space and only emits tokens. Sometimes it skips the experiment entirely and is still right. So how much do you trust the reasoning versus the verifier?* Reward hacking when the rollout is physical. Chains of thought that collapse into repetition, and a model that got annoyed and swore at the scientist who kept asking it to redo a plate map. What happens when a pathological loop has a wet lab inside it?* The bittersweet lesson. Rafa's inversion of the bitter lesson: in AI, scaling is a roadmap. In materials, scaling is a filter, because only the things that scale end up mattering.* Not your typical Flagship company. Why a famously single-asset biotech incubator spun out a platform bet, and Andy's line that if Lila called itself a biopharma it would have a top-three GPU cluster.* Bottlenecks they would remove by fiat. Sim-to-real for physics-based simulation, and the fact that RL training runs at roughly 5% mean FLOP utilization.Watch on YouTube: This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.latent.space/subscribe
'As You Like It' puts Shakespeare to music in Grand Marais Scotty Reynolds, producing artistic director of Mixed Precipitation, is shining a light on the Grand Marais Playhouse. The theater is staging a musical adaptation of Shakespeare's “As You Like It" this summer. Music and lyrics are by Shaina Taub, the creator of the Broadway musical “Suffs.” This local production opens Thursday and runs through Aug. 9 at the Arrowhead Center for the Arts. This is Artistic and Technical Director Sue Hennessy's final summer production before she retires in spring 2027. She has two more community plays planned for this fall and spring. Reynolds says: “'As You Like It' is one of Shakespeare's fantastical rom-coms, which has lots of fun frolicking and gender bending happening in the forest of Arden. The way [Taub] sets it to music using a multi-generational cast is just really special, fun, magical; it makes you laugh and cry, kind of within 20 seconds, with its sweetness and earnestness.” The Jayhawks headline Nature Rocks in Aitkin Stephanie Mollet loves the arts and music scene of her hometown of Aitken, Minn., where she is the executive director at the Aitken Area Chamber of Commerce. She recommends the annual Nature Rocks concert put on by the Long Lake Conservation Center.The Jayhawks are headlining this year's fifth annual event. It's the Minnesota band's only concert in its home state this summer. Martin Zellar & the Hardways open, though the whole event kicks off with a special performance by kids from Long Lake's camp, who have been learning about live music this week. The concert, a fundraiser for scholarships at the Long Lake Conservation Center, takes place July 18 at the Aitken County Fairgrounds. Attendees should show up early to grab a picnic table or bring your own chair and shade umbrella. Mollet says to arrive by 5:45 p.m. if you want to hear the children: “I'm really excited to see it because these kids — let me tell you — it's amazing the things that they know and how much they care for the area that's around them.” Dances at the Lake brings movement to the Lake Harriet Rose Garden Jose Leonardo Santos is an anthropologist at Metropolitan State University. A big fan of the arts, Santos particularly enjoys watching dance. He recommends bringing your lawn chair to see Dances at the Lake, which takes place at Lake Harriet Rose Garden July 17 and 18 at 7 p.m. This year's event, organized by KASM Dance Collective, includes 15 dance troupes in various styles. Santos says there's something special about seeing live dance performance in that beautiful outdoor setting. “The thing I love about dance is that it's totally immersive, right? A video of [a dance performance] is not the same thing; you've got to be there to enjoy it. Dance can be just like the funnest little thing, or it can make you cry, and you don't even know why because there's no words, right? It forces you to just go off of your senses.”
In this episode of Talking Art, Genesius Guild directors Cait Bodenbender and Michael Callahan discuss the enduring appeal of Greek drama and Shakespeare, the creative process of directing classical theatre, and this season's free outdoor productions in Davenport. They explore how centuries-old stories continue to resonate with modern audiences and why preserving these timeless works remains an important part of the Quad Cities arts community.
Can poetry become a bridge between cultures, faiths, and generations?On this episode of This Week in America with Ric Bratton, acclaimed poet, translator, literary scholar, and Professor Emeritus Martin Bidney discusses three extraordinary books that explore the beauty, wisdom, and spiritual richness of Islamic tradition through poetry and intercultural dialogue.Featured works include:Beauty in Islam: Poems of Wholeness, Light, and ConcordGod the All-Imaginer: Wisdom of Sufi Master Ibn Arabi in 99 Modern SonnetsWest-East Divan: The Poems, with "Notes and Essays": Goethe's Intercultural DialoguesMartin Bidney has pioneered a unique literary form he calls Verse Translation with Interview (VTI), creating poetic conversations with some of history's greatest writers and spiritual thinkers, including Goethe, Shakespeare, Rumi, Hafiz, Virgil, and the renowned Sufi philosopher Ibn Arabi. Through these remarkable works, he demonstrates how poetry can transcend time, language, and culture while encouraging understanding between people of different traditions.Drawing on more than six decades of scholarship, over 60 published books, and a lifetime devoted to literature, Bidney shares why poetry remains one of humanity's most powerful tools for discovering beauty, wisdom, and common ground.In this episode you'll discover:• How poetry can foster dialogue across cultures and religions• Why Goethe was inspired by Islamic and Persian literature• The enduring wisdom of Sufi philosopher Ibn Arabi• How Verse Translation with Interview creates conversations across centuries• Why literature continues to inspire empathy, imagination, and spiritual reflectionThis Week in America with Ric Bratton is one of America's premier syndicated radio shows and podcasts, featuring engaging conversations with bestselling authors, business leaders, health experts, historians, innovators, and thought leaders. Heard on more than 100 radio stations and podcast platforms worldwide, each episode delivers practical advice, inspiring stories, expert insights, and thought-provoking discussions designed to inform, inspire, and entertain. Discover new episodes every week covering business, personal development, health, wellness, technology, history, education, literature, and the issues that matter most.Whether you're interested in world literature, poetry, Islamic studies, Sufism, Goethe, Rumi, comparative religion, intercultural dialogue, philosophy, or spiritual exploration, Ric Bratton's conversation with Martin Bidney offers a fascinating journey into the timeless power of poetry to connect cultures and deepen our understanding of the human experience. Don't miss this enlightening episode of This Week in America.Keywords: Martin Bidney, Beauty in Islam, God the All-Imaginer, West-East Divan, Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Ibn Arabi, Sufism, Sufi philosophy, Rumi, Hafiz, Islamic poetry, Islamic literature, comparative literature, world literature, poetry translation, Verse Translation with Interview, VTI, intercultural dialogue, spiritual poetry, philosophy, religion, comparative religion, English literature, poetry podcast, author interview, literary criticism, poetry translation, This Week in America, Ric Bratton, podcast interview, literary podcast, Islamic tradition, Persian poetry
It's Summer Break!!! In this episode Charlie Murphy reads one of his blogs; Sharing, Not Hiding. Read Blog HERE ***** If you have any questions about the college audition process, feel free to reach out at mailbag@mappingthecollegeaudition.com. If you're interested in working with MTCA for help with your individualized preparation for your College Audition journey, please check us out at mtca.com, or on Instagram or Facebook. Follow Us! Instagram: @mappingthecollegeaudition YouTube: @MTCA (Musical Theater College Auditions) TikTok: @mtcollegeauditions Charlie Murphy:@charmur7 About MTCA: Musical Theater College Auditions (MTCA) is the leader in coaching acting and musical theater students through the college audition process and beyond with superlative results. MTCA has assembled a roster of expert artist-educators who can guide students artistically, organizationally, strategically, and psychologically through the competitive college audition process. MTCA provides the tools, resources, and expertise along with a vast and strong support system. They train the unique individual, empowering the artist to bring their true, authentic self to their work. MTCA believes that by helping students reveal their potential it allows each school to connect with those who are truly right for their programs, which in turn guides each student toward their best college fit. About Charlie Murphy: Charlie is a proud graduate of Carnegie Mellon University's BFA program. As an Actor he has performed with theaters such as: NY Public Theatre's “Shakespeare in the Park”, The Pearl Theatre Company, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, Chautauqua Theatre Company, Kinetic Theatre Company, and the Shakespeare Theatre of DC. With MTCA [Musical Theater College Auditions -- mtca.com], he has been helping prospective theatre students through the college process for over 15 years. As a Teacher and Director, he is able to do a few of his favorite things in life: help students to find their authentic selves as artists, and then help them find their best fit for their collegiate journey. Through this podcast, he hopes to continue that work as well as help demystify this intricate process. This episode was produced and edited by Kelly Prendergast. Episode theme music is created by Will Reynolds with Additional Vocals from Elizabeth Stanley. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The history of Medieval Europe is shaped by the women--wives, mothers, daughter, sisters who wielded power, made alliances, governed areas and nations. Susan Abernethy joins us to discuss the women who shaped the Medieval world.Susan AbernethyThe Freelance History Writer https://thefreelancehistorywriter.com/ Charles II's Portuguese Queen: The Legacy of Catherine of BraganzaThe Formidable Women of Medieval Europe: Power and Patronage at the Burgundian CourtBoth available from https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/ , https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/home Twitter: @SusanAbernethy2Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/susan.abernethy LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/susan-abernethy-16b57340/ Carol Ann LloydTEDx talk: 3 Leadership Secrets from Shakespeare@shakeuphistoryhttps://carolannlloyd.com/https://patreon.com/carolannlloydhttps://bookshop.org/shop/carolannThe Tudors by NumbersCourting the Virgin QueenBecome a Royal, Rebel, or a Romantic!History reveals what's possible.Support the showHistory reveals what's possible.
Nox Sinister is hard to pin down into just one subgenre of heavy metal. They use a blend of techniques borrowed from NWOBHM, thrash, progressive, death and even power metal. The members of Sinister pride themselves on marrying aggression with theatricality, often using brutal thrashing riffs to tell complex stories with broad themes. Heavily inspired by the works of Shakespeare, dark fantasy, medieval history, comic book supervillains, and the world of horror movies, Nox Sinister seeks to create a new kind of sound and a new kind of live performance. Often using the phrase they have coined; "violent musical theatre,' Sinister is a force to be reckoned with both in the studio and on the stage.Something Rather Than Nothing Podcast
"I don't want to keep secrets just to keep you" This week on AP Taylor Swift, we're going line-by-line through Taylor Swift's "Cruel Summer" (Lover, 2019). This episode turns into a deep dive into fever dreams, Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, attachment theory, and the surprising twist that the real red flag in this song might be Taylor herself. Two ways to get more of AP Taylor Swift: Substack: free subscribers get episode updates. Paid subscribers get After School: bonus episodes, our full written archive, and a vote in what we cover next. Subscribe: http://aptaylorswift.substack.com/subscribe First 50 people to grab a Substack After School annual plan get 40% off: https://aptaylorswift.substack.com/wishlistmemberdiscount Apple Podcasts: paid subscribers get ad-free episodes, early episode access, and bonus episodes Mentioned in this episode: The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald Romeo and Juliet A Midsummer Night's Dream Attached *** Episode Highlights: [04:02] How we do a deep dive [06:48] “Fever dream high in the quiet of the night” [11:34] “Devils roll the dice, angels roll their eyes” [13:20] “It's blue, the feeling I've got” [19:20] “Hang your head low in the glow of the vending machine” [25:10] “Cut the headlights, summer's a knife” [29:47] “I'm drunk in the back of the car” [34:15] “He looks up grinning like a devil” [40:08] Purpose of the song Follow AP Taylor Swift podcast on social! TikTok → tiktok.com/@APTaylorSwift Instagram → instagram.com/APTaylorSwift YouTube → youtube.com/@APTaylorSwift Link Tree → linktr.ee/aptaylorswift Bookshop.org → bookshop.org/shop/apts Libro.fm → tinyurl.com/aptslibro Contact us at aptaylorswift@gmail.com This podcast is neither related to nor endorsed by Taylor Swift, her companies, or record labels. All opinions are our own. Intro music produced by Scott Zadig aka Scotty Z.
Chosen by Mike Burton of Genuine Chit-Chat fame, Dune was released in 1984 and was David Lynch's ambitious attempt to bring Frank Herbert's famously dense sci-fi novel to the big screen. Produced by Dino De Laurentiis, the film had a reported budget of around $40 million and was shot largely in Mexico, with huge sets, elaborate costumes, miniature effects, and enough invented terminology to make a cinema audience quietly panic into their popcorn.The cast is absolutely stacked: Kyle MacLachlan, Francesca Annis, Jürgen Prochnow, Patrick Stewart, Max von Sydow, Sean Young, Brad Dourif, Dean Stockwell, and Sting, because apparently space needed a tiny pair of metal pants. On release, the film received mixed reviews and struggled commercially, but over time it became a cult VHS-era oddity: messy, fascinating, visually distinctive, and still discussed decades later by people trying to work out what on Arrakis just happened.Checkout Mike's Genuine Chit-Chat here and Star Wars Chit-Chat here.TRAILER GUY PLOT SYNOPSISIn a universe ruled by emperors, noble houses, secret orders, and one extremely valuable substance, a young heir is pulled into a war for control of the desert planet Arrakis.There are prophecies. There are giant sandworms. There are whispered thoughts, glowing eyes, floating villains, and political schemes so thick you may need a flowchart and a lie down.One family will fall. One boy will rise. And one 1980s sci-fi epic will ask the eternal question: what if Shakespeare, space opera, and a fever dream all shared the same VHS tape?FUN FACTSDavid Lynch turned down the chance to direct Return of the Jedi before taking on Dune.The film was adapted from Frank Herbert's 1965 novel, widely considered one of the most influential science fiction books ever written.The soundtrack was mainly composed by Toto, with Brian Eno contributing the haunting “Prophecy Theme.”The famous “weirding modules” were invented for the movie, replacing some of the novel's more internal and philosophical martial arts concepts.Several longer cuts exist, including a television version credited to “Alan Smithee,” the traditional pseudonym used when a director disowns a project.Lynch has often avoided discussing the film in detail, largely because he did not have final cut.The sandworm effects used miniatures and practical techniques, giving them that distinctive handmade 1980s fantasy look.Sting's Feyd-Rautha became one of the film's most memorable images, thanks partly to a costume that appears to have been designed by someone very confident in the future of underwear.Patrick Stewart's Gurney Halleck charging into battle with a pug remains one of the most gloriously baffling images in all of vintage sci-fi cinema.SUPPORT THE SHOWSupport the Show If you enjoy the show and would like to support us, we have a Patreon here. If you're listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, leaving us a 5-star review (and a short comment) really helps more people discover the show. It's quick, free, and makes a huge difference. Referral links also help out the show if you were going to sign up:NordVPNNordPassthevhsstrikesback@gmail.comhttps://linktr.ee/vhsstrikesback
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the death of composer Benjamin Britten. From his opera "A Midsummer Night's Dream," based on Shakespeare's famous play, we present a recording conducted by Britten himself, featuring the fantastical and mystical fairy chorus that graces the climax of the story. Ayako Ohtake, a Sydney-based Japanese soprano singer, has selected 'Now the hungry lion roars' this month. Ayako hosts monthly music segment called VIVA! Opera for SBS Japanese. - 今年没後50年を迎えるアニバーサリーイヤーの作曲家、ベンジャミン・ブリテン。シェイクスピアの有名戯曲をもとにしたオペラ「夏の夜の夢」から、ブリテン自身の指揮による録音で、物語のクライマックスを彩る幻想的で神秘的な妖精の合唱を取り上げました。Listen to SBS Japanese Audio on Tue, Thu and Fri from 1pm on SBS 3. Replays from 10pm on Tue, Thu and Sat on SBS1. Listen to past stories from our podcast. Download the free SBS Audio App and don't forget to visit SBS Japanese Facebook and Instagram page! - SBSの日本語放送は火木金の午後1時からSBS3で生放送!火木土の夜10時からはおやすみ前にSBS1で再放送が聞けます。SBS日本語放送ポッドキャストから過去のストーリーを聞くこともできます。無料でダウンロードできるSBS Audio Appもどうぞ。SBS 日本語放送のFacebookとInstagramもお忘れなく。
Simone is a theatre practitioner from Malta with experience in acting, directing and scriptwriting. She has an MFA in Staging Shakespeare from the University of Exeter and a strong background in scripted theatre. She is a member of the improv troupes Playing Dead Theatre, Sabir, the online troupe Close Distance and is one half of the duos Invisible Women, Pairentheses and Bold Curls. She was a founding member of the Brussels-based troupe The Ghost Sheep. Simone has taught and performed all over Europe. She loves a good duo and we talked about the importance of relationships in duo scenes and other forms. We also talked about having characters that you want the audience to root for, even if they are terrible people.Don't miss this one!!This episode, like all episodes of If This Is True, brings forth what drives creatives to do what they do. For more of this content and interaction, you can also go to my substack, coolmite25.substack.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
How did a single decision trigger Sherry's decline from Britain's favourite drink? What would it take for Sherry to make a comeback after decades of decline? How can you make the most out of your trip to the Sherry region of Spain? In this episode of the Unreserved Wine Talk podcast, I'm chatting with Ben Howkins, author of a new book on Sherry. You can find the wines we discussed at https://www.nataliemaclean.com/winepicks. Giveaway Two of you are going to win a copy of Ben Howkin's terrific book, Sherry: Maligned, Misunderstood, Magnificent! To qualify, all you have to do is email me at natalie@nataliemaclean.com and let me know that you've posted a review of the podcast. I'll choose two people randomly from those who contact me. Good luck! Highlights Why was Pedro Ximénez once considered too valuable to bottle on its own? Why did Shakespeare mention Sherry so often in his plays? How did Sherry become one of the world's most popular wines before its dramatic decline? How did one businessman almost single-handedly bring down the modern Sherry industry? Why did people in Jerez say José María Ruiz-Mateos had turned wine back into water? How has the collapse in Sherry sales unexpectedly created a rare opportunity for wine lovers? Why does Ben believe the world's finest old Sherries remain one of wine's greatest bargains? What would it take for Sherry to become fashionable again? Why are small independent bodegas giving Ben renewed hope for the future of Sherry? What makes a visit to Jerez unlike any other wine region in the world? How did Ben help revive one of Europe's oldest and most celebrated sweet wines after the fall of the Iron Curtain? Why did Hungary insist on calling it the Royal Tokaji Wine Company instead of the Imperial Tokaji Wine Company? What does "five puttonyos" actually mean on a bottle of Tokaji? After a lifetime in wine, what advice does Ben have for anyone looking to enjoy wine more? About Ben Howkins Ben Howkins is widely regarded as the UK's leading writer and expert on port and sherry. In 1963, he became the youngest recipient of the Vintners Scholarship, an experience that took him across Europe's vineyards and helped shape his lifelong passion for wine education, particularly fortified and dessert wines. A prolific author, he has written extensively for both consumer and trade publications. His books include Rich, Rare & Red, Real Men Drink Port… and Ladies Do Too!, Sherry and Adventures in the Wine Trade. He is a member of the Vintners' Company and has lectured for the Wine & Spirit Education Trust, where he also served as a Trustee. An international wine judge and public speaker, he has led vineyard tours across Europe and South America and promoted wine globally, including in the USA and China. He is co-founder of the Royal Tokaji Wine Company and a key figure in reviving Tokaji Aszú's global reputation. To learn more, visit https://www.nataliemaclean.com/398.
Sir Greg Doran is somewhat of a legend in the world of theatre and William Shakepeare. The first time the former Artistic Director Emeritus of the Royal Shakespeare Company came to New Zealand it was thanks to a copy of a First Folio of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet held at the Auckland Central City Library. Now the renowned theatre director is back in the country, but this time working with students, actors and the public discussing the love stories cultures share, and why they are such timeless tales. Sir Greg's visit was prompted by a creative project involving the Maori legend of Hinemoa and Tutanekai - two star crossed lovers that some call New Zealand's Romeo and Juliet, but with a happier ending.
It's been more than 400 years since she first appeared on stage, and she's still controversial. Margaret of Anjou appears in not one, not two, but four of Shakespeare's plays—Henry VI Parts 1, 2, and 3 as well as Richard III—maturing from a young bride-to-be to a vengeful widow. She also speaks the most lines of any of Shakespeare's female characters. Although her historical counterpart never saw battle, Shakespeare's Margaret leads armies. And while the real Margaret was permanently exiled to France, the Shakespearean version returns to England to confront her old foes. Charles O'Malley and Scott W. Stern, co-authors of Shakespeare's Margaret: The Dramatic Life of a Warrior Queen, share how Margaret exists as an avatar for anxieties about women in power throughout the ages. Shakespeare's depiction may have been influenced by Elizabeth I, but Margaret has been portrayed on stage as a witch, a seductress, an anti-fascist resistance fighter, and even an analogue for Margaret Thatcher. In this episode, O'Malley and Stern shine the spotlight on Shakespeare's most deliciously complex anti-heroine. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published July 14, 2026. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode was produced by Matt Frassica. Garland Scott is the executive producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. Technical support was provided by Pat Mesiti-Miller in Oakland and Voice Trax West in Studio City, California. Web production was handled by Megan Fraedrich. Transcripts are edited by Leonor Fernandez. Final mixing services provided by Clean Cuts at Three Seas, Inc.
Episode: 1660 Simplicity, complexity, and Shakespeare. Today, Seattle Actor Megan Cole is here to talk about complexity, simplicity, and Shakespeare.
"For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the death of queens." -Shakespeare, if the truth be told. Lindsey Graham is dead.
So many people asked me if I'd seen Hamnet yet and I hadn't and somehow didn't want to. But I was on a plane and it was available there, when other choices weren't that exciting. I did think to myself “Do I feel like crying on the plane today?” and answered eventually with, “Not particularly, but, what the hell?” So I watched it and I cried on the plane, of course, but Iresented it and I felt I needed to unpack why.There's a genre of book I have recently sworn off, despite having been attracted to these titles in the past. I call it the “Someone's Wife” genre.To keep reading Shakespeare's Wife, visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. Episode 505Song: The Bachelor's WifeImage by George Edward Perine via WikicommonsGive this podcast 5 stars. Write anice review! Rate it: https://ratethispodcast.com/strugglingartistMailinglist: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SongsfortheStrugglingArtist/Supportme on Patreon: www.patreon.com/emilyrdavisKofi: http://ko-fi.com/emilyrainbowdavisPayPal: https://www.paypal.me/strugglingartistSubstack: https://emilyrainbowdavis.substack.com/Twitter @erainbowdMastodon@erainbowd@podvibes.co BlueSky @erainbowd.bsky.social Instagram & PinterestListento The Dragoning &The Defense
As AI transforms the way work gets done, many organizations are trying to understand the skills they need today, as well as the expertise they'll need tomorrow. In this week's episode, Cammy and Gemma are joined by skills expert Koreen Pagano to unpack the rise of skills-based organizations. We discussed: What becoming 'skills-based' in an organization might look like The benefits and challenges of shifting towards a skill-based approach The impact of AI on this shift, skills development and managers. You can pre-order Koreen's forthcoming book, Rewiring Your Organization for AI, and buy her published books Building the Skills-Based Organization and Immersive Learning: Designing for Authentic Practice. In 'What I Learned this Week', Cammy shared a non-fiction book recommendation for Shakespeare was a Woman and Other Heresies. Koreen described the lives of a family of eagles which she's been following on the Big Bear Bald Eagle cam. For more from Mindtools Kineo, visit our new website mindtools-kineo.com. There, you'll find out how we can help your organization build AI skills, and how our Skills Practice scenarios help build human skills. Connect with our speakers If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn: Gemma Towersey Cammy Bean Koreen Pagano
It really is ‘Too Darn Hot!' so a perfect time for a pod about the 1953 film ‘Kiss Me Kate' starring Katherine Grayson, Howard Keel and Ann Miller. Inspired by Shakespeare's ‘The Taming of the Shrew' this Cole Porter musical tells the story of a divorced couple brought back together to star in a play. So Brush up your Shakespeare and tune in!
The Raven: Mythological Scavengers and Their Modern Return Guest: Stephen Moss Book Title: Ten Birds That Changed the World Ravens, described as "crows on steroids," carry a heavy weight of mythology as independent and highly intelligent scavengers. Associated with Odin's "eyes and ears" in Norse myth and portrayed as harbingers of doom by Shakespeare and Poe, ravens have long held a frightening aura. Their presence on battlefields and in graveyards led to centuries of persecution, particularly in Britain where bounties were paid to protect livestock. Moss dispels myths about the Tower of London ravens, noting they actually left during WWII bombings without the kingdom falling. Despite their sinister reputation, ravens are thriving again in the 21st century, adapting to urban environments and expanding their range. Moss expresses deep respect for these birds, noting they are among the few species that seem "equal to humans" in their independence and refusal to be controlled by our desires. (5)1905 PUPLE FINCH
We’ve got five literature classics to introduce to your family through board games. 0:00:00 Fact for 426 The number of people living past the age of 80 worldwide is projected to triple, hitting roughly 426 million by the year 2050. Sponsor Message Go to FirstMoveFinancial.com/familygamers and set up a free 15 minute call to see if they can help! 0:04:30 What We’ve Been Playing Obelus (our review)Spirits of the Wild: AwakeningFire TowerPalette *Tag Team (*) first time mentioned on The Family Gamers Podcast June Monthly Report Andrew: 22 plays of 8 unique games. H-index 3 (LotR Trick Taking, Trio, Got Five!) Anitra: 27 plays of 12 unique games. H-index 3 (same as Andrew) 0:16:45 The Family Gamers Community Welcome new members! #Backtalk We asked you about how you treat board games. Read the answers on Facebook or #backtalk channel of the Discord. 0:22:40 Classic Literature to Introduce via Board Games We’re going to focus on games that will whet the appetite: You don’t need to already know the stories to enjoy them, but there’s enough to make kids WANT to dig deeper. 1. Winnie the Pooh stories by A.A. Milne: Hundred Acre Wood Fluxx 2. Classic Grimm’s fairy tales: The Grimm Masquerade and 3 Chapters – both of these games make characters from different tales interact, but with specialized relationships unique to each one. 3. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: tons of games that riff on this character. But the best to introduce the setting and themes from Doyle’s stories include: Unmatched: Cobble & Fog Baker Street Irregulars (4-book / 4-player mystery from Van Ryder publishing) Sherlock 13 (deduction of a criminal, introduces many characters) 4. Shakespeare: be careful in how you approach this! Shakespeare is wonderful, but not great if you’re forced to read it. We recommend Unmatched: Slings & Arrows to introduce some of the fun of Shakespeare. 5. Greek mythology: Horrified: Greek Monsters Santorini Iliad (Unmatched has Medusa in BoL1, Achilles & Patroclus in BoL2) One more shout out for the Unmatched series. They pull from tons of classics: Alice in Wonderland, Beowulf, Robin Hood, Sinbad, and even modern “classics” like Jurassic Park, Marvel characters, The Witcher, Buffy, and TMNT. (Other games based on classic literature that are great, but work much better if you already love the story: Ichor, Bottle Imp, Paint the Roses, Princess and the Goblin, The Grimm Forest) 0:46:10 New Backtalk Question What’s your hidden gem? What’s a lesser-known game that you just click with? Or a game that you think should be much better known because it’s awesome? Tell us on the #backtalk channel on our Discord, or in our Facebook community. Find Us Online: Facebook: @familygamersaa and thefamilygamers.com/communityTwitter (X): @familygamersaaInstagram: @familygamersaaTikTok: @familygamersaaBluesky: @familygamersaaThreads: @familygamersaaYoutube: TheFamilyGamers or join the Family Tabletop Community on Discord! thefamilygamers.com/discord Or, for the most direct method, email us! andrew@thefamilygamers.com and anitra@thefamilygamers.com. PLEASE don’t forget to subscribe to the show, tell your friends about the show, and leave us a review at Apple Podcast or whatever your podcast subscription source is. We’re also on Amazon Music, TuneIn, and Spotify. You can also now find us on YouTube Music! So pull it up and give us a listen while you’re toiling away at work :) If you’d like to support The Family Gamers, there’s three ways to do that. First, you can pick up some sweet sweet merch: T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, and stickers! Go to store.thefamilygamers.com You can also support us on Patreon, if that’s more your speed. We have a few different support tiers from just a couple of dollars to show your appreciation – which we appreciate – up to five, ten, or even $20/month. There are all sorts of different rewards you can get, which we tried to make unique. You can see those at thefamilygamers.com/patreon. Thirdly, you can start your Amazon shopping at TheFamilyGamers website, using our Amazon affiliate link. Music for The Family Gamers Podcast is provided with permission from You Bred Raptors? The Family Gamers is sponsored by First Move Financial. Go to FirstMoveFinancial.com/familygamers to learn how the team at First Move Financial can help you pile up the victory points. The post Episode 426 – 5 Classic Books to Introduce via Games appeared first on The Family Gamers.
Episode 224: While I was looking into some details while I was preparing for the episodes on King Lear I came across an article that was part of a blog called ‘Hamlet's Bible', which is written by Paul Fried and was very pleased to find a series of very interesting posts relating to Biblical allusion in Shakespeare, so, of course, I asked the author of the blog, Paul Fried, if he would like to come onto the podcast to share some of his insights into this subject. Paul is a retired college lecturer who has devoted years of study to Shakespeare and the bible and his blog, now in it's tenth year, has become his way of sharing his research prior to what he hopes will be a published volume on Biblical allusion in Hamlet. He has also contributed several papers to Shakespeare conferences, most recently at the Shakespeare Association of America conference held in Denver in April 2026.I spoke to Paul from his home in Minnesota over a zoom call.Link to Paul's blog ‘Hamlet's Bible': https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/Link to ‘Hamlet's Bible' on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hamletsbible/Link to Paul's account on ‘X': https://x.com/padrianfriedSupport the podcast at:www.thehistoryofeuropeantheatre.comwww.patreon.com/thoetpwww.ko-fi.com/thoetpYou can find an advertisement free version of the latest podcast episodes by joining on Patreon at the lowest paid tier level – that's for just £1 per month. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
In Stratford Upon Avon, where William Shakespeare was born, there is a house that was built in 1530, while King Henry VIII was ruling England. This house was there when Shakespeare was living in the town, and the owners have direct connections to Shakespeare himself. Today, the house is known as Wisson House and the thoughtfully preserved historical property has been updated with modern amenities and is offered as a holiday property for anyone visiting the area, or that loves Shakespeare. Of course, when I heard about the property, I wanted to share the history with you. Which is why, today, we are delighted to welcome Amanda Billingsley, the owner of Wisson House, to the show to share the backstory of this property and what it was doing when Shakespeare was alive.
Maggie O'Farrell is the award-winning author of nine novels, including Hamnet, a breathtaking fictional retelling of the death of Shakespeare's only son from the bubonic plague. This much-loved novel won the Women's Prize for Fiction in 2020, and this year the celebrated film adaptation starring Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley arrives in cinemas. In June 2026, O'Farrell returned with her highly-anticipated new novel, Land. A multigenerational saga set in 19th-century Ireland, Land centres on the man tasked with mapping the country for the Ordnance Survey. Set in the wake of the famine, and inspired by her own family history, the novel is at once intimate and epic: a portrait of a family navigating a legacy of upheaval and survival with resilience and love. She joined us live on stage at the Brighton Dome Corn Exchange for a conversation about this sweeping new novel, the art of writing historical fiction, and re-imagining the lives of ordinary people caught up in extraordinary moments in history. --- If you'd like to become a Member and get access to all our full conversations, plus all of our Members-only content, just visit intelligencesquared.com/membership to find out more. For £4.99 per month you'll also receive: - Full-length and ad-free Intelligence Squared episodes, wherever you get your podcasts - Bonus Intelligence Squared podcasts, curated feeds and members exclusive series - 15% discount on livestreams and in-person tickets for all Intelligence Squared events ... Or Subscribe on Apple for £4.99: - Full-length and ad-free Intelligence Squared podcasts - Bonus Intelligence Squared podcasts, curated feeds and members exclusive series … Already a subscriber? Thank you for supporting our mission to foster honest debate and compelling conversations! Visit intelligencesquared.com to explore all your benefits including ad-free podcasts, exclusive bonus content and early access. … Subscribe to our newsletter here to hear about our latest events, discounts and much more. https://www.intelligencesquared.com/newsletter-signup/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Peter Filichia, James Marino, and Michael Portantiere review King Lear @ Hudson Valley Shakespeare, The Loved Ones @ Irish Rep, Giulia: The Poison Queen Of Palermo @ Perelman Performing Arts Center, Small @ Signature Center, and A Walk On The Moon @ the Laura Pels Theatre. “This Week on Broadway” read more
Maggie O'Farrell is the award-winning author of nine novels, including Hamnet, a breathtaking fictional retelling of the death of Shakespeare's only son from the bubonic plague. This much-loved novel won the Women's Prize for Fiction in 2020, and this year the celebrated film adaptation starring Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley arrives in cinemas. In June 2026, O'Farrell returned with her highly-anticipated new novel, Land. A multigenerational saga set in 19th-century Ireland, Land centres on the man tasked with mapping the country for the Ordnance Survey. Set in the wake of the famine, and inspired by her own family history, the novel is at once intimate and epic: a portrait of a family navigating a legacy of upheaval and survival with resilience and love. She joined us live on stage at the Brighton Dome Corn Exchange for a conversation about this sweeping new novel, the art of writing historical fiction, and re-imagining the lives of ordinary people caught up in extraordinary moments in history. --- If you'd like to become a Member and get access to all our full conversations, plus all of our Members-only content, just visit intelligencesquared.com/membership to find out more. For £4.99 per month you'll also receive: - Full-length and ad-free Intelligence Squared episodes, wherever you get your podcasts - Bonus Intelligence Squared podcasts, curated feeds and members exclusive series - 15% discount on livestreams and in-person tickets for all Intelligence Squared events ... Or Subscribe on Apple for £4.99: - Full-length and ad-free Intelligence Squared podcasts - Bonus Intelligence Squared podcasts, curated feeds and members exclusive series … Already a subscriber? Thank you for supporting our mission to foster honest debate and compelling conversations! Visit intelligencesquared.com to explore all your benefits including ad-free podcasts, exclusive bonus content and early access. … Subscribe to our newsletter here to hear about our latest events, discounts and much more. https://www.intelligencesquared.com/newsletter-signup/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The Hamlet Podcast - a twice weekly exploration of Shakespeare's Othello. Greetings from Venice! I am here on holiday but figured this was the right place to launch our journey through Othello. Episode 01 will be with you in just a couple of days but this introduction will lay some groundwork for the story. Written and presented by Conor Hanratty