A novel about emilia bassano lanyer: a jewish woman of color who may have written many of shakespeare's plays...and embedded clues to her authorship.
Shakespeare's Conspirator
SHAKESPEARE’S CONSPIRATOR shatters beliefs about the world’s greatest playwright. Did he really write the thirty-seven plays attributed to him in twenty-three years?
It’s 1587. Shakespeare is struggling to launch his career. Finally he persuades theatre owner James Burbage to stage Henry VI. Burbage is one of several proprietors who refused to look at Emilia Bassano’s comedic script. Infuriated after being blocked at every turn, she reluctantly seals a secret pact with Shakespeare, but embeds into the scripts a trial of clues pointing to her authorship. Their fiery relationship and her audaciousness triggers suspicions, plots to expose them, and grave dangers.
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE PREMISE AND SUPPORTING RESEARCH AT SHAKESPEARESCONSPIRATOR.COM
My Story, In Brief
Steve Weitzenkorn
I’m Steve. I write historical fiction that challenges assumptions and provides new insights into events in prior centuries, bringing to life legendary personalities and people overlooked in the sweep of time.
My writing journey began as I was concluding a long career as an organizational behavior consultant. As an avid reader, I became intrigued by curious fact patterns that provided fresh insights into commonly-held beliefs that I, like most others, assumed were true and had never challenged or explored in any depth. When I realized the logic of those assumptions did not hold up to close scrutiny, and experts had dug trenches around their own theories, I launched into my own research. Fascinating stories emerged and my imagination took over.
Since most people don’t read academic material, I reasoned that a compelling way to convey the evidence and challenge beliefs was to depict real and fictional characters dropping the bread crumb trails, or following them, and then discussing the clues through intriguing plots that track with historical chronologies–so readers could draw their own conclusions.
Shakespeare’s Conspirator is the first of these novels.