Women Writers in the Elizabethan Era

Recently, we talked to novelist Jodi Picoult about her contention that many of the works commonly attributed to Shakespeare were actually written by a woman named Emilia Bassano (a.k.a. Aemilia Lanyer). But even as that compelling theory awaits definitive proof, we already know of several women - Shakespeare's contemporaries - who overcame obstacles and wrote their way through a male-dominated literary world. In this episode, Jacke talks to scholar Ramie Targoff (Shakespeare's Sisters: How Women Wrote the Renaissance) about the women who defied the odds and defined themselves as writers at a time when women were legally the property of men. PLUS Jacke talks to Sarah Gristwood (Secret Voices: A Year of Women's Diaries) about her choice for the last book she will ever read.

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