Nationality American Role Author Name Robin Williams | Genre Non-fiction Period 1989 – present Education St. John's College | |
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Born October 9, 1953 (age 70)
Berkeley, California ( 1953-10-09 ) Occupation Non-fiction writer; graphic designer; teacher; lecturer on Shakespeare Subject Computers; graphic design; Shakespeare Books The Non‑Designer's Design B, Robin Williams design w, The Mac is not a typewriter, The Little Mac Book, The non‑designer's type book Similar People Sandee Cohen, Maria Langer, Tom Negrino | ||
Robin Patricia Williams (born October 9, 1953) 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, ... [Williams] has influenced an entire generation of computer users in the areas of design, typography, desktop publishing, the World Wide Web, and the Macintosh."
Contents
Biography
Williams grew up in San Jose and Fremont, California and graduated from Washington High School in Fremont. She later attended Ohlone College and 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.
She is an 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 was a founder of The Mary Sidney Society.
She is married to graphic designer and co-author John Tollett and has three children.
Writings
She has written, designed, indexed, and produced more than fifty 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 Understanders' 16-week 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. Sweet Swan of Avon doesn't pretend to put the matter to rest, but simply shows how completely reasonable the authorship controversy is, and how the idea of a female playwright surprisingly answers more Shakespearean conundrums than it creates....