What kinds of critical insights are made possible only or especially via creative strategies? This volume examines how creative modes of writing might facilitate or inform new ways to critically engage with Shakespeare. Creative writing, demonstrated in a series of essays, reflections, stories and scenes, operates as a vehicle for exploring and articulating critical and theoretical ideas. In doing so, Shakespeare's enduring creative and critical appeal is newly understood and critiqued.

Rob Conkie is Senior Lecturer in Theatre at La Trobe University. His teaching and research integrate practical and theoretical approaches to Shakespeare in performance. He is the author of Writing Performative Shakespeares: New Forms for Performance Criticism (Cambridge University Press, 2016) and The Globe Theatre Project: Shakespeare and Authenticity (Edwin Mellen, 2006). He has directed about a third of the Shakespeare canon for the stage.

Editorial
Graham Holderness

Introduction: Creative Critical Shakespeares
Rob Conkie and Scott Maisano

Chapter 1. Responses to Responses to Shakespeare's Sonnets: More Sonnets
Matthew Zarnowiecki

Chapter 2. Exit, pursued by a fan: Shakespeare, Fandom, and the Lure of the Alternate Universe
Kavita Mudan Finn and Jessica McCall

Chapter 3. A Merry Midsummer Labor Merchant's Tempest in King Beatrice's Verona
Jessica McCall

Chapter 4. Pickled Red Herring
Kavita Mudan Finn

Chapter 5. Enter Nurse, or Love's Labour's Won
Scott Maisano

Chapter 6. Echo and Narcissus, or, Man O Man!
Mary Baine Campbell

Chapter 7. The Fair Maid of Alexandria, or The Glass Tower
Dan Moss

Chapter 8. A Tragedy of the Plantation of Virginia
David Nicol

Chapter 9. Othello, Original Practices: A Photographic Essay
Rob Conkie