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Andrea Chapin

Goodreads Author

Born

Portsmouth, New Hammpshire, The United States

Twitter

AndreaLChapin

Genre

Historical Fiction, Fiction, Memoir

Influences

Jane Austen, Balzac, John Banville, Kay Boyle, AS Byatt, Joan Chase, C ...more

Member Since

April 2014

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Andrea Chapin is the author of The Tutor (Riverhead Book/Penguin Random House), a novel that imagines a year in the life of William Shakespeare. Chapin has acted professionally, touring Germany in Edward Albee’s Seascape. She has been an editor at art, movie, theater, and literary magazines, such as The Paris Review, Conjunctions, and The Lincoln Center Theater Review, and has written for More, Redbook, Town & Country, Self, Martha Stewart Living, Marie Claire (UK), and other publications. Her work has appeared in several anthologies, including The Honeymoon's Over: True Stories of Love, Marriage & Divorce (Warner Books), of which she was co-editor. Chapin is also a writing teacher and private book editor. She lives in New York City with he ...more

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Why did you started writing?

Andrea Chapin My first “novel” was a mystery called, well, The Mystery of the Green Glass. I wrote it in third grade, long hand, on thick yellow paper with a thick …moreMy first “novel” was a mystery called, well, The Mystery of the Green Glass. I wrote it in third grade, long hand, on thick yellow paper with a thick pencil. I wish I had that copy now! My third grade teacher launched a literary magazine for her students to publish poems, short stories and art. This was way back before computers were ever used in schools or were ever used at all. We painstakingly wrote and drew everything on mimeograph paper and then printed out copies on the mimeograph machine the school office. I started my mystery “novel” for that magazine, and then I just kept on going. I remember the satisfaction I felt as the stack of yellow paper grew on my desk. A few years later, my stories became more personal: I’d sit on the basement stairs of our house, in the dark, and in my head I’d write very autobiographical accounts of all the dysfunctional things that were going on with my family. Decades later, after I’d published journalism and a few short stories, it was returning to my autobiographical voice and then publishing memoir pieces and personal essays that truly enabled me to find my voice and to launch my career as a writer. (less)

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Can you a come up with a deleted scene from your favorite Shakespeare play?

Andrea Chapin One wonderful aspect of writing historical fiction, is the “what if.” In THE TUTOR, I imagined what if Shakespeare had a muse/editor/collaborator name…moreOne wonderful aspect of writing historical fiction, is the “what if.” In THE TUTOR, I imagined what if Shakespeare had a muse/editor/collaborator named Katharine, who helped him create the first writing he ever published--the erotic narrative poem “Venus and Adonis.” And now, another “what if” for #ShakespeareWeek.

In Act I, Scene 5 of “Macbeth,” Lady Macbeth conveys her steely desire to kill King Duncan with such lines as,” Come to my woman’s breasts, and take milk for gall.” And in Act I, Scene 7, when Lady Macbeth is trying to goad Macbeth into killing King Duncan, she says: “I have given suck, and know how tender ‘tis to love the babe that milks me.” Yet later in the play, Mcduff states that Macbeth has no children.

What if Lady Macbeth had a child who died? And what if the grief and fury over the loss of this child is, in part, what drives her twisted and murderous ambition. “Macbeth,” thought to have been written in 1606, is one of Shakespeare’s shortest plays, and this fact has prompted critics and scholars to wonder if scenes were cut by the time the play was first published in the Folio of 1623.

Here’s my stab at a “lost” scene from “Macbeth,” a soliloquy from Lady Macbeth recounting the death of her child:

The indignities of love, the helpless terror.
A night of deafening shrieks and howls,
A day of hoarse gasps from tiny ruby lips.
I witnessed once sweet breath, fairy dew,
Turn rank and foul and evil.
I have kissed soft petal cheeks,
Felt flesh mutiny from spring to summer,
And from summer to winter.
I have seen the sun in adoring and adored eyes
Grow dim and dark, two caves.
O my blistering, burning babe,
No doctor, no nurse, no mother could cool thee.
The gem does lose its sparkle.
The cream its sweetness, the torch its light.
What is the use of life? Of any life?
When such a bundle of pink turns gray and fetid.
Why love at all?
When such a God gives power to the dying?
Better to hate, so when the death crush comes
No tear is left to shed, no milk to give.
(less)

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Combine Editions
Andrea Chapin’s books

Average rating: 3.27 · 681 ratings · 158 reviews · 4 distinct works • Similar authors

	The Tutor 3.18 avg rating — 564 ratings — published 2015 — 14 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Honeymoon's Over: True Stories of Love, Marriage, and Divorce by Andrea Chapin (Goodreads Author), Sally Wofford-Girand 3.74 avg rating — 117 ratings — published 2007 — 13 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Tutor Lib/E by Andrea Chapin (Goodreads Author), Elizabeth Knowelden (Reading) 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	BY Chapin, Andrea ( Author ) [{ The Tutor By Chapin, Andrea ( Author ) Feb - 05- 2015 ( Cloth ) } ] 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Andrea is Currently Reading

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The Beginning of Spring

by Penelope Fitzgerald

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Apr 11, 2016 10:40AM

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