Today marks the birthday of the greatest writer of all time – William Shakespeare! It’s also world book day nationally – even though the UK coincidently celebrated world book day on my birthday. A genius of his time and an inspiration to us all – it’s a day well worth celebrating.

I was lucky enough to be able to visit Stratford upon Avon back in 2016, the town where Shakespeare grew up. It was a fascinating time and we even got to go into his house. It was strange to see the world he lived in, imagining how he would write his classics there, but my favourite part of the house was a window where famous writers from around the world had etched their names into the glass. You may be just about able to see it on the cover photo to this blog. I so wanted to join them, but of course I couldn’t.

I’ve admired and known about Shakespeare’s work from a young age as we were frequently visited by the young Shakespeare company when I was at school who performed Twelfth Night, A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream, The Taming of the Shrew, Hamlet and Macbeth. Then at school I got to actually read Romeo and Juliet as well as The Tempest which I think is my favourite of all his plays. Those two certainly inspired me the most, and I’m glad I got to read his work when I was that young and really appreciate it.

One thing that’s been cropping up recently is how Shakespeare too was in quarantine from the plague. In that time, he supposedly wrote King Lear, so as writers we have a lot to live up to if we want to do as well as he did! It must have been a scary time, but I suppose if something’s going to inspire you, it’ll be your surroundings, no matter how strange they may seem.

So, on Shakespeare Day, what can we do to celebrate? Well, probably the main thing I’ll be doing is trying to see if I can use my time as wisely as he used his, but I think just reading a bit of his work – even if it is just a poem – would be a great place to start. With this extra time we now seem to have, maybe it’s time to see what all the fuss is about if you haven’t already or re-read your favourite play. But on my final note, I just want o say thank you to Shakespeare for inspiring hundreds of thousands of writers like me. We only hope that we’d ever become as famous as you! Cheers!

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N.A.K