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Tiffany offers reading from Shakespeare novel

April 15, 2004

KALAMAZOO--Attendees will hear excerpts from a novel written in the voice of Shakespeare's daughter at the Wednesday, April 21, meeting of the Friends of the Western Michigan University Libraries.

Dr. Grace Tiffany, WMU associate professor of English, will read from her book "My Father Had a Daughter: Judith Shakespeare's Tale," beginning at 4 p.m. in the Edwin and Mary Meader Rare Book Room on the third floor of Waldo Library. The event, which is free and open to the public, is also the annual meeting of the Friends of the Western Michigan University Libraries.

Published last year, Tiffany's novel is narrated by Shakespeare's real-life daughter, Judith. Shakespeare had three children: Susanna, the oldest, and twins Judith and Hamnet, who died as a boy. When Judith recognizes her own grief used for fodder in her father's "Twelfth Night," she sets out to sabotage a London performance, only to realize, as the book jacket surmises, "that she and her father have more in common than she imagined."

"This is a well-written, inventive account, with some facts and much fiction, of the lives of Judith Shakespeare, her complicated family, and the complicated, rich time they lived in," says Dr. Bill Combs, professor emeritus of English at WMU and president of the Friends of the Western Michigan University Libraries. "'My Father Had a Daughter' is interesting, lively, touching and smart."

A member of the WMU faculty since 1995, Tiffany is an expert on Shakespeare and Elizabethan-Jacobean drama. She has published numerous articles and another book, "Erotic Beasts and Social Monsters: Shakespeare, Jonson, and Comic Androgyny." She has two more novels in the works, and is working on a children's book, "Ariel," which will be published by Harper Collins in 2005. Tiffany earned her bachelor's degree from Duke University and a doctoral degree from Notre Dame.

Media contact: Jessica English, 269 387-8400, jessica.english@wmich.edu

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