R.K. Aanstad

Rachel Aanstad is a writer, illustrator, historian, and self-confessed Shakespeare nerd with an MFA in theatre. She is the author of Who's Who in Shakespeare's History Plays: From Achilles to Anne Boleyn, The Influences Behind Shakespeare's Plays, A Bawdy Twelfth Night or What You Will Encyclopedia & Dramaturgical Handbook, and A Midsummer Night's Dream Illustrated Handbook and Encyclopedia.

Based in the Pacific Northwest, she co-hosts the podcast Shakespeare and Friends with renowned Shakespeare scholar Darren Freebury-Jones, and has appeared on That Shakespeare Life and The History of European Theatre. Her work lives at the intersection of scholarship and stagecraft: books made for actors, directors, students, and anyone who loves a good story about where good stories come from. Her historian's eye turns next from the Bard's sources to the metal that funded five thousand years of empires.