1–What is the title of your latest release? THE DANE OF MY EXISTENCE 2–What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book? Two corporate rivals wage war over the future of a small Shakespearean-obsessed town and make creative use of a desk. 3–How did you decide where your book was going to take place? The Dane of My Existence is the sequel to “For the Love of the Bard.” I was eager to write another story set in the fictious town of Bard’s Rest, New Hampshire, where locals take their love of William Shakespeare to a whole new level. 4–Would you hang out with your heroine in real life? Definitely, we’re both lawyers. We could talk shop over late-night oysters and bubbly downtown or try and one-up each other at the dog park with tales of how smart our dogs are. My dogs would prevail, of course. 5–What are three words that describe your hero? Relentless. Introverted. Battle-tested. 6–What’s something you learned while writing this book? I learned more than I ever cared to know about historical landmarks and laws related to creating them and preserving them. 7–Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done? I…

by Jessica Martin Call me a nerd, but when I find myself in a writerly pretzel knot, I like to think about William Shakespeare and what he might have done to get the words flowing. Partly because I am a huge nerd and partly because for someone whose works are so well-known, the man behind them was a complete enigma. For example, there’s an ongoing debate as to whether the Bard was a dog fan. He was clearly a big proponent of canine imagery (there are over a hundred references in his plays to dogs), but these references tended to be…less than flattering.  Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war, anyone? Or how about King Lear’s dog-hearted daughters? Woof. But then again, Shakespeare also seemed to recognize that dogs could be invaluable furry writing tools. In Act II, Scene 3 of The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Crab—a moderately-sized, poorly behaved canine specimen—trots on stage, promptly relieves himself under a banquet table and proceeds to go down as one of the most memorable of scene-stealing, non-speaking roles in all of Shakespeare’s works. Who doesn’t love a bit with a dog? Like Crab, a pup on the page can be…