William Shakespeare is the timeless author of such plays as Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. For the last 400 years Shakespeare’s plays have been performed around the world and adapted into films, television series, and graphic novels. Shakespeare himself has even gone on to appear as a character in film, television, novels, and graphic novels as a character. He is celebrated with many titles and distinctions. He has been called the Swan of Avon and the Bard. Some even rank him as the greatest dramatist of all time and the most influential writer in the history of the English language. Join us on a special episode of Quote Me as we dig into and tell some candid stories about the man behind some of the most well-known stories of all time.
Nora Keita Jemisin was raised in both Mobile, Alabama and New York City. Bouncing back and forth between the two cities, fiction was Jemisin's anchor. She always knew that she wanted to be a writer and began taking steps to become one in her late 20s and early 30s. Since then, she has found great acclaim and has been heralded by The New York Times as, "The most celebrated science fiction and fantasy writer of her generation." She is most well known for her trilogy of novels, collectively called The Broken Earth. In 2018 she became the first author in history to win three Best Novel Hugo awards in a row, one for each book in the trilogy. Ursula K. Le Guin, born Ursula Kroeber on October 21st, 1929, in Berkeley California, is a celebrated author of poetry, fiction, non-fiction and more. She's written 23 novels, 12 volumes of short stories, 11 volumes of poetry, 13 children's books, five essay collections, and four works of translation. She's won several Nebulas and Hugos along with a slew of other awards. Known mostly for her science fiction, Le Guin refused to be pigeonholed into a single genre.
Happy Halloween! On a very special anniversary episode of Quote Me, we pay tribute to the legendary Shirley Jackson by discussing two writers who have been directly inspired by her work. It’s a clash of horror titans as we discuss and compare the influence of Shirly Jackson on Carmen Maria Machado and Benjamin Percy! Carmen Maria Machado was born July 3rd, 1986 in Allentown Pennsylvania. She is the author of the short story collection Her Body and Other Parties, memoir In the Dream House, and comic The Low, Low Woods. She is well known for crossing genre borders and creating a new genre called "Liminal fantasy." Winner of the National Book critics Circle Award John Leonard Prize, Machado has a long list of residencies, honors, and academic essays to her name. Benjamin Percy was born in Eugene, Oregon on March 28, 1978. He spent most of his formative years growing up in Oregon and it serves as the primary setting for most of his fiction. Benjamin has written six novels, as well as short stories, nonfiction essays, comics, podcasts, and screenplays. Two of his most well-known works are the horror thriller Red Moon and the post-apocalyptic quest tale The Dead Lands. Benjamin Percy reading Goodnight Moon: https://soundcloud.com/graywolfpress/benjamin-percy-reads-goodnight-moon
Percy Bysshe Shelley was born August 4th , 1792. At the time he was considered a radical both politically and poetically. He is most well known for the pieces "Ozymandias," "To a Skylark," and "Prometheus Unbound." While he faced considerable family strife over his atheism, he eventually made good friends of Thomas Jefferson Hogg and Lord Byron. Mary Godwin, his second wife, is the author of Frankenstein. Shelley passed in a boating accident on July 8th , 1822 at the age of 29.
Ocean Vuong, a Vietnamese American author, was born in Saigon in 1988 to a family of rice farmers. He became a refugee at the age of two when they fled to the Philippines and later, Hartford, Connecticut. Growing up after 9/11 and during the Opioid epidemic proved to be a difficult prospect for Vuong and his family, not to mention that he was Gay. However, after struggling with dyslexia and learning English as a second language, Vuong dove into the western literary canon and started writing poetry. His collections have won a myriad of prizes including the Whitting award and the T.S. Eliot Prize. His novel, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, has been translated into 37 different languages, and he is the recipient of the MacArthur "Genius" Grant. Join us to hear more about this incredible writer!
Mark Twain, born Samuel Langhorne Clemens, was an American writer, lecturer, and humorist. He was considered the "father of American Literature," having produced such works as The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Twain was born November 30, 1835 in Hannibal, Missouri where he worked as a typesetter and riverboat pilot. While he filed for bankruptcy a few times during his life, he often made up for it with successful lecturing tours. He was born and died shortly after the appearance of Halley's Comet (April 21, 1910.)
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was born October 16th 1854 in Dublin. His father, Sir William Wilde, was a famous surgeon while his mother was a poet and folklorist. Wilde is most famous for his first and only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and several plays especially The Importance of Being Earnest. However, you may have heard about his series of trials for "gross indecency," or his very strange teeth! Tune in to learn more!
Earnest Hemingway (1899-1961) was a Nobel Prize winning American writer. His most popular works are The Sun Also Rises (1926), A Farewell to Arms (1929), For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940), and The Old Man and the Sea (1952) which won him the Pulitzer Prize in 1953. His understated style had a strong influence on twentieth century fiction and his mastery of writing won him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. He lived an exciting life which often landed him in the news. Hemingway was an adrenaline seeker, a world traveler, and a lover of six-toed cats.
"Octavia E. Butler is widely considered the mother of Afrofuturism and queen of science fiction. Having been the only science fiction author to win the McArthur Genius fellowship, she is truly an inspiration to aspiring authors and sci-fi geeks alike. She is the author of 12 novels including the Patternmaster series, the Earth Seed duology, Kindred, and Fledgling. She is known for writing herself into her books, which is apparent with her empowered, African American, female protagonists, and brutal themes of consent, violence, and aspirations of equality. However, despite her skill, she was incredibly humble and shy. Join us in discussing her life and legacy!"
Dwayne McDuffie, born on February 20th, 1962, was a writer of comic books and animated television shows. McDuffie began his writing career working with Marvel Comics where he created Damage Control (a group formed to clean up the messes left behind by battles between heroes and villains) and created a new variation of Marvel’s Deathlok character. In the 1990s, McDuffie co-founded Milestone Media, the company behind the Milestone Comics imprint that originated such characters as Icon & Rocket, Hardware, and the beloved Static. In the 2000s, McDuffie began to work on animated television shows including Justice League, Justice League Unlimited, Ben 10: Alien Force, and Static Shock (the animated adaptation of the character Static). Tragically, McDuffie passed away just one day after his 49th birthday from complications after undergoing emergency heart surgery.
Danez Smith (they/them) is a poet and educator most well known for their works highlighting the facets and intersections of their identity. Danez is genderqueer, they are "black in a political sense and in a racial sense" (from their TEDx Talk "Listen, dammit! Student voice are you listening?") and they are HIV positive. One of their most famous works is "Dear White America" in which they fantasize about leaving earth for a better, safer planet. They are the winner of many awards including the Forward Prize for Best Collection, the Midwest Bookseller's Choice Award, the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry.
Vine Deloria Jr. (Standing Rock Sioux), was a lawyer, theologian, and advocate for American Indian rights. Born in 1933, Deloria grew up in South Dakota. Deloria graduated in 1951 from the Kent School in Connecticut, served in the Marines for several years and then returned to school to earn a master's degree in Theology in 1963 from Iowa State, and later in 1970, he received his JD from Colorado Law. From 1978 until his retirement in 2000, Deloria was a professor at several colleges teaching political science, ethnic studies, history and religion. He established the first master's program in American Indian Studies at the University of Arizona, and served as executive director of the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), helping it grow and become financially stable. Deloria passed away November 13th, 2005. Out of his prolific collection of written material, in this podcast we will discuss Custer Died for your Sins, God is Red, and Red Earth, White Lies.
Shirley Jackson, born December 14, 1916, is most well known for her short story, The Lottery. However, she also wrote the quintessential haunted house book, The Haunting of Hill House, and psychological thriller, We Have Always Lived in the Castle. Although she may be the mother of monsters, she also wrote for woman's housekeeping magazines, had four children, and a strenuous relationship with her mother and husband. This rebellious spirit criticized her misogynist, heteropatriarchal society through her writing and was often shunned because of it. She died August 8th, 1965, of heart failure after several years of suffering with agoraphobia, mental illness, and an alcohol dependency.