Queer Shakespeare: Queer Adaptations

By Molly Booth.
This young adult novel re-imagines Much Ado About Nothing set at summer camp. Claudio is re-imagined as a young women, Claudia, and Hero is openly bisexual. This change affects how the narrative treats toxic masculinity in other characters; allows the story to explore the challenges of coming out, even to a loving and accepting community; and provides a queer love story with a happy ending.

By Robin Talley.
A re-telling of Macbeth set at boarding school, this novel follows Maria and Lily, roommates-turned-girlfriends who will stop at nothing to secure their future together at a prestigious university, including communing with spirits in an attempt to destroy Maria’s only academic rival. The supernatural world bleeds into the mundane one as their plan quickly grows out of their control. The novel addresses racism and classicism in addition to homophobia, and all four of the main characters are queer.

By Cat Winters.
This novel based on Hamlet takes place in Prohibition-era Oregon. Hamlet becomes a young biracial woman named Hanalee and Horatio a young gay man named Joe. Both have suffered at the hands of their intolerant community and each provides support for the other in their fight for justice. The novel takes the power struggles of its source play and adds the complications of racial and homophobic oppression.