Doc Sherwood
Bio
Stories (535)
Filter by community
Two Female Coming-of-Agers
If you've ever so much as glanced over my writing on Vocal, you'll agree there's quite a good deal of coming-of-age in there. However, you'll probably also agree it seems to be written exclusively from a male perspective. The following plea for feedback was prompted by my friend Staringale, who read and gave me some very kind comments on one of the few exceptions to the above rule. This in turn started me thinking about the general absence of female coming-of-age tales within my body of work.
By Doc Sherwood2 years ago in Critique
On Prince Hal and the History Plays
William Shakespeare began to write English history plays early in his career with the three-part Henry the Sixth, followed by Richard the Third which was his first major success. Around 1597 he began a second four-part cycle, this one about the preceding historical period.
By Doc Sherwood2 years ago in BookClub
William Shakespeare's The Tempest
At some point between 1585 and 1592, a young William Shakespeare left his hometown Stratford-upon-Avon to seek his fortune as a playwright. Nobody knows which of his works was the first to be written or performed - only that on an afternoon in London around the late 1580s or early 90s, a Shakespeare play appeared onstage for the first time. The world changed forevermore that day, which is long forgotten to us now.
By Doc Sherwood2 years ago in BookClub
William Shakespeare's Henry VIII
The Famous History of the Life of King Henry VIII (also known as All is True) was written in 1613, possibly to celebrate the Royal Wedding of one of King James’s daughters which took place that year. The play does not seem to have been published until 1623, when it appeared in the First Folio. It is the last of Shakespeare’s English history plays, and may also be the very last play he ever wrote, as he died just three years later. The Tempest, written around 1611, was the final work Shakespeare authored alone, but we know that after that he produced a few others collaboratively.
By Doc Sherwood2 years ago in BookClub
William Shakespeare's Coriolanus. Top Story - December 2023.
Written around 1608, Coriolanus was possibly William Shakespeare’s last tragedy. He wrote four such plays set in Ancient Rome, and coincidentally his first tragedy, Titus Andronicus, is also one of these. However, while Titus is not very accurate historically, for Coriolanus (as well as Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra) Shakespeare made extensive use of Plutarch’s Lives of the Most Noble Grecians and Romans which had been translated into English by Thomas North in 1579. Coriolanus does not appear to have seen print in Shakespeare’s lifetime, and the earliest text is from the posthumously-published First Folio of 1623.
By Doc Sherwood2 years ago in BookClub
Dark Matter
The students from the visiting girls' school were getting to be a real pain. This morning had been typical. A bunch of us were on our way to class, when Nectar suddenly pulled up so sharply that her spiral antennae all but straightened, and with a shocked little squeal of "Ooh!" clapped both hands to the back of her regulation miniskirt.
By Doc Sherwood2 years ago in Fiction
Nectar Hands me a Conundrum
Mighty oaks and silver birches and Californian redwoods cast their twining shadows from overhead as Four-Eyes and I passed quietly through the night-time botanical garden. From flowerbeds at our feet, springtime crocuses nestling alongside Christmas begonias threw colour and scent. The path wound its way by holographic simulacra of an English thatched cottage, Mount Rushmore, and the Taj Mahal.
By Doc Sherwood2 years ago in Fiction
Interplanetary Interschool
Telekinetic boys were the worst. The umpires were psychic too, and supposedly able to detect a contestant illegally using his powers, but low-level stuff slipped by them. That was why my shoelace coming untied mid-game always made me fume with suspiciousness, and doubly so when my underwear happened to need an urgent untuck just when I was about to shoot the ball.
By Doc Sherwood2 years ago in Fiction
When the Ball-Machine went Haywire. Top Story - December 2023.
At lunchtime the day it happened, I was sitting sidelong on a bench with my feet up. Another boy and a girl came over so I scrambled up at once, then sat down again with a bump at the far end. I hoped the girl might look at me and say thanks for making room, but no such luck.
By Doc Sherwood2 years ago in Fiction
Coda, Chapter Two
Finally a free afternoon came around. It would have been a long way for Joe to walk, so he and Neetra set off together in the latter’s space-car, flanked by Flashtease who was driving Flashshadow in his and Joe’s red racer. She, our hero knew, wanted to see this as much as he himself did.
By Doc Sherwood2 years ago in Chapters
