LOUNGE: Rod Carley – In Converation with Amy Jones

Rod Carley’s back with another theatrical odyssey packed with an unforgettable cast of Elizabethan eccentrics. It’s a madcap world more modern than tomorrow where gender is what a person makes of it (no matter the story beneath their petticoats or tights). Will Shakespeare is having a very bad year. Suffering from a mid-life crisis, a plague outbreak, and the death of the ancient Queen, Will’s mettle is put to the test when the new King puts his witch-burning hobby aside to announce a national play competition that will determine which theatre company will secure his favour and remain in business. As he struggles to write a Scottish supernatural thriller, Will faces one ruff and puffy obstacle after another including a young rival punk poet and his
activist-wife fighting for equality and a woman’s right to tread the boards.

Will and his band of misfits must ensure not only their own survival, but that of England as well. The stage is set for an outrageous and compelling tale of ghosts, ghostwriting, writer’s block, and the chopping block. Ruffly based on a true story.

BIO

Rod Carley is an award-winning author, humourist, actor, director, teacher, and playwright. His work has been longlisted twice for the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour, received the Independent Publishers Book Awards Silver Medal for Best Regional Fiction and Foreword Review INDIES Bronze Medal for Humour. He has been a finalist for the Next Generation Indie Book Award for Humor/Comedy, the Carter V. Cooper Short Fiction Prize, and the Northern Lit Award for Fiction. His books include RUFF (2024), GRIN REAPING (2022),  KINMOUNT (2020), and A Matter of Will (2017) – all with Latitude 46 Publishing. His short stories and creative non-fiction have appeared in numerous Canadian literary magazines. Rod was the 2009 winner of TVO’s Big Ideas/Best Lecturer Competition. www.rodcarley.ca