Jodi Picoult

We are thrilled to welcome Jodi Picoult, beloved author of 29 novels, for an exclusive evening celebrating her latest stirring tale: By Any Other Name. Set in Shakespearean England, this affecting novel perfectly blends Shakespearean England and modern-day Manhattan to make you rethink all you thought you knew about Elizabethan England.

What if the greatest writer of all time isn't who we think he is?
What if he isn't even a he?
Step back four hundred years and discover the female author who hid behind the mask of the man we know as William Shakespeare . . .

In Elizabethan London, young Emilia Bassano is a ward of English aristocrats. Her education has endowed her with a sharp wit and a gift for storytelling, but still she is allowed no voice of her own. Forced to become a mistress to the Lord Chamberlain, who oversees the theatre, Emilia discovers the power of stories to beguile audiences. Secretly, she forms a plan to bring a play of her own to the stage - by paying an actor named William Shakespeare to front her work. In modern-day Manhattan, playwright Melina Green finds a woman's voice is still worth less than a man's. But, inspired by the life of her ancestor Emilia Bassano, Melina takes a lesson from history and submits a play under a male pseudonym . . .

Moving between Elizabethan England and modern day Manhattan, By Any Other Name is a beautifully written, compelling novel that explores the theme of identity and the ways in which two women, centuries apart-one of whom might just be the real author of Shakespeare's plays-are both forced to hide behind another name to make their voices heard.

Jodi Picoult is the author of 17 Sunday Times number one bestsellers. She is the recipient of multiple awards, including the New England Bookseller Award for Fiction, the Alex Award from the YA Library Services Association, and the NH Literary Award for Outstanding Literary Merit.