Michael P. Jensen,
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Career
Mike has been a freelance writer since his first publication, "Publishing Fever," in 1980. Today he has roughly 300 publications in all media: newspapers and magazines, television, radio, and on-line. He has published advertising, reviews, poetry, short stories, essays, and Shakespeare scholarship.
Regular assignments were From Our Biblio-Files on KJAZ-FM, two years as the travel bibliographer for Incentive Magazine, and three years as the Shakespeare reviewer for Small Press magazine. Mike now writes the "Talking Books" column for Shakespeare Newsletter, and was named Contributing Editor in July 2002.
His work is widely cited in books and journals including the books Shakespeare and the Moving Image and Hamlet on Screen, Filmfax magazine and the journal Post-Haste. His poetry has been published under three different versions of his own name, plus the names Paul Michaels, J. M. Jesson, and Billy T. Jacobs.
Books
Alzheimer's: The Answers You Need
Co-authored with Helen D. Davies, Alzheimer's: The Answers You Need is the first guidebook to help newly diagnosed patients get through the next few years of their lives. Mike and Helen have appeared on many radio and television shows in North America, and made personal appearances to support the book. To learn more about Alzheimer's: The Answers You Need, click here.
The book is being revised with hope that a new edition will be ready in a couple of years.
Shakespeares After Shakespeare: An Encyclopedia of the Bard in the Mass Media and Popular Culture
This two volume reference work was published in 2007. Mike is one of thirteen contributors, writing over 700 entries about Shakespeare on the radio and in comics. Click here to see the publisher's page for the book.
Life on the Farm
A publication of the Graduate Medical Education Office at Stanford University, this book welcomes and orients new residents and interns to Stanford Hospital. The book explains living in the San Francisco Bay Area and commuting to work, nearby recources and communities, how to get around the area, and the policies and procedures to successfully navigate training at Stanford Hospital. Mike took a version that was several years old and gave it a through updating and revision.
Contributed Chapters/Essays to These Books
Shakespeare Survey 61, "Lend Me Your Ears: Sampling BBC Radio Shakespeare." This is a survey of the work of three BBC radio directors who produced Shakespeare for the radio as a way of describing the various ways that the BBC has produced radio Shakespeare, (Cambridge University Press, 2008). Click here for the publisher's page.
Shakespeare on Film, Television and Radio: The Researcher's Guide, "Henry V (1976)" "The Wars of the Roses (1965)," and "Julius Caesar (1950)," Three very short essays describing worthwhile radio and television productions of Shakespeare from the USA and Great Britain, (British Universities Film and Video Counsel, 2009). Click here for the publisher's page.
Mike contributed a chapter on Shakespeare comic books for The Edinburgh Compantion to Shakespeare and the Arts just published in Scotland. He surveys Shakespeare comic books, manga, allusions, quotations, and Shakespeare as a character world-wide. Click here for the publisher's page.
Shakespeare Survey 65, "A Midsummer Night's Dream on radio: the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's radio series." The book is due January 2013.
Current Projects:
Mike is editing a special issue of the journal Borrowers and Lenders: The Journal of Shakespeare and Appropriation on the subject of service Shakespeare. Here is the press release.
"I am delighted to announce that I shall edit a special section in Borrowers and Lenders: The Journal of Shakespeare and Appropriation (http://www.borrowers.uga.edu/cocoon/borrowers/about) about what for now we are calling Service Shakespeare. This is a call for papers with apologies for cross postings. Please forward this to those you think may be interested or send their contact information to me.
By Service Shakespeare, I mean Shakespeare used in the service of different populations, especially needy or isolated populations. Perhaps the best known example is the Shakespeare in prisons programs, and the best known example of this is the documentary Shakespeare Behind Bars. I hope to cast the net rather widely. My own contribution will be about using Shakespeare as a therapy for Alzheimer’s patients. Topics may include Shakespeare amongst those with other illnesses, with mental disabilities, the homeless, the poor, Shakespeare produced for those in the armed services, and serving the handicapped in professional theatre companies. Let these serve as examples of the sort of topics sought, not as limitations. I am open to any great idea as long as the emphasis is on using Shakespeare to serve others or as a therapy. Please contact me with your proposals.
Michael P. Jensen
Mike will also lead a seminar on Shakespeare documentaries at the 2013 Shakespeare Association meeting in St. Louis. Please consider writing a paper for that seminar. Here is the blurb that will appear in the next SAA Bulletin:
The Shakespeare Documentary
Seminar Leader: Michael P. Jensen
(Shakespeare Newsletter)
Many who have never read a Shakespeare play have seen a Shakespeare documentary. This seminar considers the hundreds of programs produced for radio, film, and television that have served educational, marketing, and propaganda purposes. Possible avenues include: documentaries about a single play or Shakespeare's life, audio/visual classroom materials, the personalities of corporations behind the documentaries, DVD extras, changes in documentary treatments of Shakespeaer over time and across media, how and why documentaries matter. Those who have produced or participated in Shakespeare documentaries are most welcome.
Editors, to check the progress of the work Mike is doing for you, click here.
For long term projects, click here.
