Oberon members Linda Theil, Richard Joyrich, and Susan Grimes Gilbert meet in-real-life at the Good Sense Coffee Company in downtown Howell, Michigan on October 27, 2024. by Linda Theil Oberons had a real life encounter yesterday when Susan Grimes Gilbert visited from Texas and joined Richard Joyrich and me at the Good Sense Coffee Company in downtown Howell. The Oberons haven't met face-to-face since 2020 when Oberon switched to Zoom meetings during the pandemic. Although we have tried to resume local meetings, our hopes have not panned out, as our group becomes older and less mobile. Since we no longer collect dues, or hold events, we made plans yesterday to close out the Oberon bank account and donate the proceeds; and Richard as Oberon chair will carry out that duty for our group. Richard still hosts a monthly Zoom meeting usually at 2 p.m. on the second Saturday of the month, welcoming all who are interested. To contact Oberon, send email to oberonshakespearestudygroup@gm
by Linda Theil Look no further than best-selling author Jodi Picault's brand new novel for evidence that the Shakespeare author ship is leaking like a sieve. Picault credited Elizabeth Winkler's 2019 Atlantic article "Was Shakespeare a Woman?" about Emilia Bassano as inspiration for By Any Other Name , a novel released today by Ballentine Books featuring Bassano as a pen behind the Shakespeare pseudonym. In that same interview on Jacke Wilson's History of Literature podcast, Picault told Wilson that she believes Edward deVere, seventeenth earl of Oxford, played a role in the Shakespeare authorship. "I believe the earl of Oxford was the puppet master behind the works of William Shakespeare," Picault said. The History of Literature podcast episode is titled "Meet the woman who REALLY wrote Shakespeare's plays with Jodi Picoult" , broadcast today. For centuries pressure has been building on the bulwark of Stratfordian-based authorship cre