The First Five Pages: A Writer's Guide To Staying Out of the Rejection Pile

“An audacious achievement.” –Jennifer Lee Carrell, Ph.D. (Harvard) New York Times Bestselling author of Interred With Their Bones/The Shakespeare Secret “Lukeman’s sequel to the Scottish play succeeds as both a fascinating literary exercise and an entertaining play in its own right….[A] poetic, well-paced drama.” —Booklist Recommended Reading, New York Magazine Fall Preview In 1610, The Tragedy of Macbeth was first performed. 400 years later: the sequel, written as a five-act play in blank verse. Ten years king, Malcolm sits on an uneasy throne. If Malcolm’s mind is haunted by the ghosts of his royal father (“gracious Duncan”) as well as the thane and lady who so bloodily betrayed him, Malcolm’s soul is sickened, as was Macbeth’s, by the witches’ prophecy that from Banquo’s seed would spring a line of Scottish kings: a prophecy that remained unfulfilled at the end of Shakespeare’s play. The witches also taunt Malcolm with riddles all his own: that sorrows will visit him from Ireland (where his younger brother fled upon their father’s death); that his love for Macbeth will breed fresh treachery. True to the Shakespearean model, its devious plot unfolding in five acts and its speech set to the measure of blank verse, Macbeth, Part II, draws bold the tragedy of a powerful man undone by the terrors he imagines and the truths he fails to see. ""Noah Lukeman's bold sequel to Macbeth, written in blank verse, is a fierce, memory-ridden love letter to Shakespeare, and an enthralling reminder that, in our imagination, Shakespeare's greatest plays have no end."" –Nigel Cliff, author of The Shakespeare Riots “Lukeman did a top-notch job creating a fresh play in the style of Shakespeare. The story moves quite briskly, and takes quite a few intriguing twists....The rhythm of the words and the drama of the story would make for quite a suspenseful and entertaining show.” —Fashionista Piranha “Lukeman truly has mastered the Shakespearian art and created a play that can stand as a sequel to the great Shakespearian play.” —A.M. Perez, Amanda's Weekly Zen