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I was lucky enough to have a fantastic Shakespeare professor in college. She brought the material to life with her vast knowledge and brought students to tears with her brilliantly structured lectures. Every year she split the class into groups of five, assigned each group an act of a play, and had students stage a production all over campus. It was my first and only appearance as Hamlet, but I did get the big graveyard scene. The experience stuck with me forever.

So when I sat down to write a novel about a Shakespeare professor, out this month called Elizabeth the First Wife, I borrowed liberally from my own exceptional teacher. Except the vast knowledge of Shakespeare part. I quickly realized that being a Shakespeare enthusiast is not really even in the same ballpark as being a Shakespeare scholar. There was almost no academic question I could cook up for my fictional professor to study that hasn't already been beaten to death by those in the know, in books, blogs, and message boards. I couldn't compete with the real deals, even in fiction. So I decided ...