July Book Giveaway: My Name is Will: A Novel of Sex, Drugs, and Shakespeare by Jess Winfield ends July 31

Thanks to Anna at Hatchette Books Group, we have 5 copies to give away!

About the Book, courtesy of Hatchette Books Group:

Book Information:

A Tale of two Shakespeares...

Struggling UC Santa Cruz grad student Willie Shakespeare Greenberg is trying to write his thesis about the Bard. Kind of...

Cut off by his father for laziness, and desperate for dough, Willie agrees to deliver a single giant, psychedelic mushroom to a mysterious collector, making himself an unwitting target in Ronald Reagan's War on Drugs.

Meanwhile, would-be playwright (and oppressed Catholic) William Shakespeare is eighteen years old and stuck teaching Latin in the boondocks of Stratford-upon-Avon. The future Bard's life is turned upside down when a stranger entrusts him with a sacred relic from Rome... This, at a time when adherents of the "Old Faith" are being hanged, drawn, and quartered as traitors.

Seemingly separated in time and place, the lives of Willie and William begin to intersect in curious ways, from harrowing encounters with the law (and a few ex-girlfriends) to dubious experiments with mind-altering substances. Their misadventures could be dismissed as youthful folly. But wise or foolish, the bold choices they make will shape not only the 'Shakespeare' each is destined to come... but the very course of history itself.

About the Author, courtesy of the Author's website:

With credits ranging from portraying Hamlet on the London stage to writing self-help books and Saturday morning cartoons, Jess has lived an eclectic creative life.

A Southern California native, Jess was raised in the bohemian artists' enclave of Lake Sherwood before it was transformed into a top ten golf course. His mother, a freelance writer, and his father, a writer and producer for the Walt Disney Studios, instilled early on a love of language, wordplay, and talking animals.

Wisely giving up sports for drama, speech, and journalism at Newbury Park High School, he continued his education at the University of California, Santa Cruz and the University of California, Berkeley. Although he majored in English and specialized in Shakespeare, Jess mostly hung out in the dark, subterranean hallways of experimental theater, studying improvisation with Shireen Strooker of Amsterdam's Het Werkteater.

In 1981, he joined forces with high school chum Adam Long and writer/director Daniel Singer to form The Reduced Shakespeare Company.

After six years of busking at Renaissance Faires and tourist haunts with their freewheeling, half-hour versions of Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet, their full-length show The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1987 and became an international sensation, leading to multiple world tours and lengthy engagements in Los Angeles, New York, London, Montreal, Dublin, and Edinburgh. In 1991, the show opened in the West End to rave reviews. Jess retired from the RSC in 1992, but The Complete Works continued with various casts, finally closing at Piccadilly's Criterion Theatre in 2005 as the longest-running comedy in the West End.

Although the 1990s found Jess adapting and editing the trade paperback version of The Complete Works (now in its fourth printing) and directing critically-acclaimed productions of the show both Off-Broadway and at San Diego's Old Globe Theater, he largely turned his attention from Shakespeare to animation. Following in his father's footsteps, he embarked on a second career as a writer and producer for the Walt Disney Company that culminated in two Daytime Emmy awards for Disney's Teacher's Pet (starring Nathan Lane and Jerry Stiller) and the hugely successful Lilo and Stitch spinoffs Stitch! The Movie; Lilo and Stitch: The Series; and Leroy and Stitch.

After dipping his toes back in Shakespearean waters with the lighthearted self-help book What Would Shakespeare Do? in 2000, Jess left Disney in 2005 to begin work on his first novel, My Name Is Will — A Tale of Sex, Drugs, and Shakespeare, which blends a historically plausible story of William Shakespeare's young adulthood with a contemporary romp loosely based on experiences from Jess's years in Santa Cruz and Berkeley.

Jess lives in Hollywood with his wife Sa, an accomplished ceramicist.

In his spare time, he blogs about Los Angeles's dynamic ethnic food scene (lafoodcrazy.blogspot.com) and supports the L.A. Philharmonic, the Hollywood Bowl, the Los Angeles Kings, and the distillers of Ketel One vodka, as well as many progressive causes and charities.
Learn more about Jess Winfield on Jess Winfield's website and blog http://www.jesswinfield.com/index.html

CONTEST DETAILS:

To enter, please share your favorite Shakespearean play or character.

Rules:
1. Please include your email address, so that I can contact you if you win.
2. For an extra entry, sign up to become a follower and mention this in your comment. If you're a follower, let me know and you'll get the extra entry.
3. For an extra entry, become a subscriber and mention this in your comment. If you're a subscriber, let me know and you'll get the extra entry.
4. For an extra entry, follow me on twitter (startingfreshny) and let me know that you do.
5. For an extra entry, blog about this contest and post the link.
6. Leave a separate comment for each entry or you'll only be entered once.

The contest is limited to U.S. and Canada. No P.O. boxes. The contest ends on midnight of Friday, July 31, 2009.