David Robson is an award-winning playwright whose work for the stage has been hailed as "compelling", "forceful", and "gut-wrenching" by the New York Times, and "an important contribution to contemporary theater" by the Philadelphia Inquirer. His plays include WITHOUT CONSENT; BIRTHRIGHT (PlayPenn semi-finalist); CLAY WARRIOR; MULEHEADED; AFTER BIRTH OF A NATION (Best Delaware Playwright Award); PRICELESS; PLAYING THE ASSASSIN (Philadelphia Critics' Best Play Nomination); PLAYING LENI (co-written with John Stanton); A FEW SMALL REPAIRS; MAN MEASURES MAN (Barrymore Award nomination); and AFTER DENMARK. Work has been produced by TheaterWorks Hartford, Delaware Theatre Company, Penguin Rep, InterAct Theatre Company, and Act II Playhouse, among others. Robson was recently named Delaware's Best Playwright by Broadway World, and is recipient of the Hotel Obligado Audience Choice Award for New Work. Other honors include the Susan McIntyre Playwriting Award, the Panowski Playwriting Award (runner-up), and two playwriting fellowships and two grants from the Delaware Division of the Arts. Play development: Bated Breath Theatre (Hartford, CT), Lark (NYC), White Pines Productions (Philadelphia, PA), City Theater Company (Wilmington, DE), Great Plains Theatre Conference (Omaha, NE), Last Frontier Theatre Conference (Valdez, AK), Rebel Theatre (NYC), and New Theatre (Coral Gables, FL). His plays and monologues are published by Smith and Kraus and Original Works Publishing. David is a member of the Dramatists' Guild, the Playwrights' Center, and is a former playwright in residence at the Lark Play Development Center in New York City. He is also the author of more than 20 books for young adults, including Shakespeare's Globe Theater, The Murder of Emmett Till, and The Black Arts Movement. He earned an MFA in creative writing from Goddard College, an MS in English Education from St. Joseph's University, and a BA in Communications from Temple University.

I'm an academic renegade The first day of my PhD program at University of Chicago, my advisor said, "You know there are no jobs, right?" I knew, but I didn't care. I wanted to write about history for a broader audience than the other five people interested in my dissertation topic. I wanted to write for history buffs and nerdy kids and the general intelligent reader. (That would be you, right?) Officially my degree is in the history of the Indian sub-continent, with strong sub-fields in European imperialism and Islam. I feel strongly that the West in general and Americans in particular need to know more about the history of other parts of the world. That belief is often reflected in the topics I choose to write about, whether I'm working on a small story (feather hats in ancient Peru, anyone?) or a big one (Mankind: the Story of All of Us). These days I write about a wide range of historical topics for history buffs, nerdy kids and—you get the idea. On any given day I could be working on World War I recruiting posters, the mud mosques of West Africa, the first European translation of the Arabian Nights, Napoleon's invasion of Egypt, or the history of absinth. At least half the time I'm writing outside of "my field", exploring odd corners of the past with field-tested research skills, a red-hot library card, and a large bump of curiosity. Basically, I'm interested in the times and places where two cultures meet and change each other. Come along for the ride.