A stunning debut on queer love, betrayal and survival in the Elizabethan Age from a vital new voice in historical fiction
Hesse Phillips (she/they) was raised next door to a chicken farm in rural Pennsylvania but now lives in Spain. Much of their early life was spent in the theatre, where they developed a love for Shakespeare and the other Elizabethan/Jacobean dramatists which carried over into academics, earning a BA in theatre history at Marlboro College, Vermont, and later a PhD in Drama from Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts. While writing their undergraduate thesis on Edward II, they also began working on a novel about Christopher Marlowe which would eventually become Lightborne. Hesse's poetry and prose have appeared in The Bridport Review, the époque press é-zine, Roi Fainéant Press, Emerge Literary Journal, Erato Magazine, and Pangyrus, among others. They are a proud graduate of Grub Street Boston's acclaimed Novel Incubator program.
