Andrea Chapin asked Elizabeth Nunez:

How have Shakespeare's plays and poetry influenced your writing?

Elizabeth Nunez I learned a lot from Shakespeare's plays about plotting and pacing. Take any Shakespeare play, and within the first act, sometimes within the very first scene, you are connected to the main character and you want to find out whether or not he/she achieves his/her desire. In Macbeth, two of the witches' predictions come true, but they have also predicted that Macbeth will be king. You follow the plot to find out what Macbeth will do to make that happen. In King Lear, Lear disinherits his youngest daughter, but you know that the two older daughters have simply flattered him. You follow the plot Shakespeare devises to find out what will happen to Lear as a consequence of his rash decision, what will happen to the youngest daughter. Will the two older daughters continue to be as deceitful? What price will they pay for their deceit? In Hamlet, you know immediately that Hamlet suspects that his uncle murdered his father, and that there is something not right about his mother's swift marriage to his uncle. You follow the plot to find out what Hamlet will do and if he will succeed.

I also learned from Shakespeare how to connect all the characters in the story to the plight, misfortune or fortune of the main character. I learned how to use story to explore the many facets of the human condition. I learned how to use the medium of written story, i.e. language and literary tropes, so that the story excites on many levels, including aesthetically.

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