Robin Williams (writer)


Robin Patricia Williams is an American educator who has authored many popular computer-related books, as well as the book Sweet Swan of Avon: Did a Woman Write Shakespeare?. Among her computer books are manuals of style The Mac is Not a Typewriter and The Non-Designer's Design Book, as well as numerous manuals for various macOS operating systems and applications, including The Little Mac Book. "Through her writing, teaching, and seminars,... has influenced an entire generation of computer users in the areas of design, typography, desktop publishing, the World Wide Web, and the Macintosh."

Biography

Williams grew up in San Jose and Fremont, California and graduated from Washington High School in Fremont. She later attended Ohlone College, then moved to Santa Rosa, California, and attended, then taught graphic design and typography at, Santa Rosa Junior College. In 2011, she received an MA degree from Brunel University, London, in Shakespeare Authorship studies, and in 2014 she completed a doctoral dissertation for the same university; her doctorate is on the history of reading Shakespeare—out loud and in community, with an emphasis on editorial practice.
Robin is a graphic designer, typographer, author, college instructor, and lecturer. She has been a leader in the New Mexico Internet Professionals Association and the Santa Fe Mac Users Group. She is a founder of the Mary Sidney Society and the International Shakespeare Center Santa Fe.
She is a single mother of three grown children and lives with graphic designer and co-author John Tollett; John has one child.

Writings

She has written, designed, indexed, and produced more than seventy computer-related books, translated into twenty-three languages.
Williams has spent years studying William Shakespeare, and in 2006 issued her book Sweet Swan of Avon: Did a Woman Write Shakespeare? in which she proposed the writer Mary Sidney as a candidate in the Shakespearean authorship question. She also teaches Shakespeare and leads the Shakespeare Close Readers reading and discussion groups about individual plays.
Of Williams' research, her mentor, Cynthia Lee Katona, professor of Shakespeare and Women's Studies at Ohlone College, has said
The first question I am asked by curious freshmen in my Shakespeare course is always, "Who wrote these plays anyway?" Now, because of Robin Williams' rigorous scholarship and artful sleuthing, Mary Sidney Herbert will forever have to be mentioned as a possible author of the Shakespeare canon. The real beauty of Sweet Swan of Avon is not, however, primarily academic; this book reminds of us a day when scholarship was fun, and important and original books were written for curious readers everywhere.

Williams is a co-founder of the International Shakespeare Center Santa Fe and now devotes her time to introducing Shakespeare to adults through reading groups, www.iReadShakespeare.org, and other activities of the ISC.

Books

Williams is creating a line of Shakespeare plays called the Readers' Editions, edited and designed specifically for reading aloud in a Shakespeare reading group, published by ISC Press, Santa Fe, NM.
Williams has written over 70 books, published by Peachpit Press, Berkeley, CA.
Titles by Williams, Robin.
Titles by Williams, Robin, writing with Tollett, John.
With Cohen, Sandee.