Description

We're THRILLED to be welcoming Jodi Picoult back to Bellingham as she shares her newest novel By Any Other Name!

Jodi will be in conversation with local author Becky Mandelbaum!

CLICK HERE TO RESERVE YOUR SEAT!*

Tickets are also available by phone or in person from WWU's box office. (360) 650-6146

Performing Arts Center - 516 High St. Bellingham, WA 98225

(360) 650-6146

From the New York Times bestselling co-author of Mad Honey comes a novel about two women, centuries apart—one of whom is the real author of Shakespeare’s plays—who are both forced to hide behind another name.

Young playwright Melina Green has just written a new work inspired by the life of her Elizabethan ancestor Emilia Bassano. But seeing it performed is unlikely, in a theater world where the playing field isn’t level for women. As Melina wonders if she dares risk failure again, her best friend takes the decision out of her hands and submits the play to a festival under a male pseudonym.

In 1581, young Emilia Bassano is a ward of English aristocrats. Her lessons on languages, history, and writing have endowed her with a sharp wit and a gift for storytelling, but like most women of her day, she is allowed no voice of her own. Forced to become a mistress to the Lord Chamberlain, who oversees all theatre productions in England, Emilia sees firsthand how the words of playwrights can move an audience. She begins to form a plan to secretly bring a play of her own to the stage—by paying an actor named William Shakespeare to front her work.

Told in intertwining timelines, By Any Other Name, a sweeping tale of ambition, courage, and desire centers two women who are determined to create something beautiful despite the prejudices they face. Should a writer do whatever it takes to see her story live on . . . no matter the cost? This remarkable novel, rooted in primary historical sources, ensures the name Emilia Bassano will no longer be forgotten.

Jodi Picoult is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of twenty-nine novels, including Mad Honey (co-authored with Jennifer Finney Boylan), Wish You Were Here, The Book of Two Ways, A Spark of Light, Small Great Things, Leaving Time, and My Sister’s Keeper, and, with daughter Samantha van Leer, two young adult novels, Between the Lines and Off the Page. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband. 

Becky Mandelbaum is the author of the novel The Bright Side Sanctuary for Animals and the story collection Bad Kansas, which received the Flannery O'Connor Award, a High Plains Book Award, and was a Kansas Notable Book. Her short stories, essays, and humor writing have appeared in The New Yorker, One Story, The Sun, The Georgia Review, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and elsewhere. She lives in Bellingham, Washington. (Photo credit Evan Holstrom)

What you need to know:   

• All tickets include a signed copy of By Any Other Name specially bound by the publisher.
• In lieu of a signing line, this event includes a photo line with a professional photographer who will capture a personal meet-and-greet moment for each ticketholder.
• Tickets must be purchased. Pre-order of the book will not grant you access to the event.
• If you are unable to attend the event, your book will be placed on hold at our Fairhaven store. You may request to have your book placed on hold at our Lynden location. Please allow time for transfer.

Additional copies of By Any Other Name and other books by Jodi Picoult will be available for purchase at the event. This event will include time for audience Q&A.

*$37 - Admission for one, 1 copy of By Any Other Name | $44 - Admission for two, 1 copy of By Any Other Name (to choose this option, you must add TWO $22 tickets to your cart).

Doors open at 6:15 for 7pm show time!