Now a Protestant confronting a Catholic ghost is exactly Shakespeare's way of grappling with what was not simply a general social problem but one lived out in his own life.

No special writing rituals. And my desk is usually cluttered.

My father who in this case was an obsessive life-long storyteller, and by a very peculiar trick of my father's. My father would tell a very, very long story, and the punch line would be in Yiddish.

I was in Venice teaching, so I reread Henry James's "The Wings of the Dove." I love James.

Literate households in the 17th century would have had the Bible, John Bunyan's "The Pilgrim's Progress," and a couple of other books. Shakespeare plays were cheap, so you could buy those, but a folio cost a pound, which was an incredible amount of money then.

The Shakespeare that Shakespeare became is the name that's attached to these astonishing objects that he left behind.

But I never listen to music while I'm writing.