Lois Leveen | |
---|---|
Nationality | American |
Education | Harvard University (A.B., 1990) University of Southern California (M.A., 1994) University of California, Los Angeles (M.A., 1996) University of California, Los Angeles (Ph.D., 1999) |
Genre | Historical fiction |
Notable works | The Secrets of Mary Bowser (2012) |
Lois M. Leveen is an American writer, educator and historian based in Portland, Oregon. [1]
Leveen graduated from Harvard College, University of Southern California, and University of California, Los Angeles. [2]
Leveen published her first novel, The Secrets of Mary Bowser, in 2012. [3] The novel is based on the life of Mary Bowser, a Virginia slave who became a spy for the Union Army. It was named one of The Oregonian 's Top Ten Northwest Books of 2012, [4] and has been optioned for film. [5]
For her second novel, Juliet's Nurse, Leveen reimagined the story of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet from the point of view of the nurse. [6] The audiobook, which was read by Nicola Barber, won an Earphones Award from AudioFile Magazine . [7]
One of Leveen's essays is mentioned in CrossRoutes: The Meanings of "Race" for the 21st Century, a 2003 book. [8]
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare early in his career about two young Italian star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately reconcile their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular plays during his lifetime and, along with Hamlet, is one of his most frequently performed plays. Today, the title characters are regarded as archetypal young lovers.
Shakespeare in Love is a 1998 romantic period comedy-drama film directed by John Madden, written by Marc Norman and playwright Tom Stoppard, and produced by Harvey Weinstein. It stars Gwyneth Paltrow, Joseph Fiennes, Geoffrey Rush, Colin Firth, Ben Affleck and Judi Dench.
Sir Kenneth Charles Branagh is a British actor and filmmaker. Branagh trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London; in 2015 he succeeded Richard Attenborough as its president. He has been nominated for five Academy Awards and five Golden Globe Awards. He has won three BAFTAs and two Emmy Awards. He was appointed a Knight Bachelor in the 2012 Birthday Honours and knighted on 9 November 2012. He was made a Freeman of his native city of Belfast in January 2018. In 2020, he was listed at number 20 on The Irish Times list of Ireland's greatest film actors.
Rosamund Mary Ellen Pike is a British actress and narrator. Her accolades include a Golden Globe Award and Primetime Emmy Award, with nominations for an Academy Award and British Academy Film Award.
The Giver is a 1993 American young adult dystopian novel written by Lois Lowry. It is set in a society which at first appears to be utopian but is revealed to be dystopian as the story progresses. The novel follows a 12-year-old boy named Jonas. The society has taken away pain and strife by converting to "Sameness", a plan that has also eradicated emotional depth from their lives. Jonas is selected to inherit the position of Receiver of Memory, the person who stores all the past memories of the time before Sameness, as there may be times where one must draw upon the wisdom gained from history to aid the community's decision making. Jonas struggles with concepts of all the new emotions and things introduced to him: whether they are inherently good, evil, or in between, and whether it is even possible to have one without the other. The Community lacks any color, memory, climate, or terrain, all in an effort to preserve structure, order, and a true sense of equality beyond personal individuality.
Elizabeth Van Lew was an American abolitionist and philanthropist who built and operated an extensive spy ring for the Union Army during the American Civil War.
Harriet E. Wilson was an African-American novelist. She was the first African American to publish a novel on the North American continent. Her novel Our Nig, or Sketches from the Life of a Free Black was published anonymously in 1859 in Boston, Massachusetts, and was not widely known. The novel was discovered in 1982 by the scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr., who documented it as the first African-American novel published in the United States.
Juliet Anne Virginia Stevenson, is an English actor of stage and screen. She is known for her role in the film Truly, Madly, Deeply (1991), for which she was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. Her other film appearances include Emma (1996), Bend It Like Beckham (2002), Mona Lisa Smile (2003), Being Julia (2004) and Infamous (2006).
David Hewson is a contemporary British author of mystery novels. His series of mysteries, featuring police officers In Rome, led by the young detective and art lover Nic Costa, began with A Season for the Dead, has now been contracted to run to at least nine instalments by British, American, European and Asian publishers. The author's debut novel, Shanghai Thunder, was published by Robert Hale, in the United Kingdom, in 1986. Almost all copies of the book were sent to libraries, and it has been reissued.
Christian Peter Coulson is an English actor best known for playing the 16-year-old Tom Marvolo Riddle in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
Seana McKenna is a Canadian actress primarily associated with stage roles at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival.
Mary Jane Richards, Mary Jane Richards Garvin and possibly Mary Bowser, was a Union spy during the Civil War. She was enslaved from birth in Richmond, Virginia, but was effectively freed as a young child in 1843 when her owner, John Van Lew, died and his daughter, the abolitionist Elizabeth "Bet" Van Lew, took ownership of all his slaves and subsequently freed them all. Bet Van Lew then had Richards sent to school. When the Civil War broke out, Van Lew recruited her to serve as a spy and helper for the Union cause. She relayed information she heard to Van Lew, who in turn communicated it to Union leadership. Richards was only one of a spy ring run by Van Lew, although Van Lew considered Richards her most important source.
The Nurse is a major character in William Shakespeare's classic drama Romeo and Juliet. She is the personal servant, guardian of Juliet Capulet, and has been since Juliet was born. She had a daughter named Susan who died in infancy, and then became wetnurse to Juliet. As the primary person to like, she is therefore Juliet's foremost confidante. She is very important to Juliet's life.
Andrew James Hartley is a British-born American novelist, who writes bestselling and award-winning fiction for children and adults. He blogged regularly for the writers' site Magical Words from 2009 until 2012 and is a regular presenter at Thrillerfest and Dragon Con. He also writes thrillers as Andrew Hart.
Gnomeo & Juliet is a 2011 computer-animated romantic comedy film directed by Kelly Asbury from a screenplay by Rob Sprackling and John Smith. It is loosely based on the play Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare and features the voices of James McAvoy, Emily Blunt, Michael Caine, Jason Statham, Maggie Smith, Ashley Jensen, Stephen Merchant, Matt Lucas, Jim Cummings, Julie Walters, Richard Wilson, Patrick Stewart, and Ozzy Osbourne. The story follows Gnomeo and Juliet, a pair of garden gnomes who fall in love, but due to the feud between their respective families, they must find a way to keep their blossoming romance a secret.
Romeo & Juliet is a 2013 internationally co-produced romantic drama film adaptation of William Shakespeare's romantic tragedy of the same name written by Julian Fellowes and directed by Carlo Carlei. The film stars Douglas Booth, Hailee Steinfeld, Damian Lewis, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Ed Westwick, Stellan Skarsgård and Paul Giamatti. The film opened in the United Kingdom and the United States on 11 October 2013. Like Franco Zeffirelli's adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy, this film uses the traditional setting of Renaissance Verona, but, unlike previous major film adaptations, only follows the plot and uses only some of the dialogue as written by Shakespeare. This has led to several critics denouncing the film's advertising as misleading and losing the essence of the play. The film grossed $3 million.
David Blixt is an American author, stage actor, and director living Chicago, Illinois. Blixt currently serves as an Artistic Associate at the Michigan Shakespeare Festival and is the MSF's resident Fight Director. He has directed several plays, including a 2004 production of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged). Since 2011 he has been on the arts faculty of the Chicago High School For The Arts. In 2012 he and Broadway veteran Rick Sordelet launched their own printing imprint Sordelet Ink, which focuses on publishing playscripts as well as some of Blixt's own works.
Rosalind Barber is an English novelist and poet. She is also a university lecturer in English, who supports the view that Christopher Marlowe wrote Shakespeare.
Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593), English playwright and poet, has appeared in works of fiction since the nineteenth century. He was a contemporary of William Shakespeare, and has been suggested as an alternative author of Shakespeare's works, an idea not accepted in mainstream scholarship. Marlowe, alleged to have been a government spy and frequently claimed to have been homosexual, was killed in 1593.
The Marlowe Papers is a novel by Ros Barber published in 2012. It won the Hoffman Prize in 2011, the Desmond Elliott Prize in 2013 and was joint-winner of the Authors' Club Best First Novel Award.