Quote Me

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.

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 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!"

Here are a few clips from our next episode featuring Octavia Butler.  This episode will be released on April 27th.