Category: Diana Birchall

Any Excuse Will Do – or, Procrastination

Come to think of it, Procrastination is not a bad title for a pseudo Jane Austen novel, is it? Starting a fashion for one word titles with her own Persuasion, Jane Austen also wrote to her niece Anna, approving of the one-word title of her work in progress, Enthusiasm. She wrote, “Enthusiasm is such an …

Continue reading

A Double Cameo for Ukraine by Diana Birchall

  In our Austen Variations fundraiser for Ukraine, our authors offered cameos in their forthcoming novels in exchange for donations to the cause. My first cameo was written for donor Michelle d’Arcy (a most fortuitous name to work with!), to be included in my next novel The Darcys and Lord Byron in Venice, and it …

Continue reading

JAFF Loves Ukraine update

Wow! Our Austenesque community is so amazing!!! Between 35 authors and hundreds of readers, we’ve already raised over $7000  $8000 $9000 for humanitarian aid to Ukraine on our original fundraiser post! Give yourselves a big hand! But the need is far too great to rest on our laurels, so our authors have pulled out even …

Continue reading

JAFF Loves Ukraine Fundraiser

New: There’s a new post with updates! Like most of the world,  we’ve been feeling heart-heavy over the tragedy in Ukraine, even more so as Elizabeth Adams, one of our authors, lived in Ukraine and is married to a Ukrainian.  We want to do what we can to help out, so we’re turning to you, …

Continue reading

Jane Austen Unmasked – Diana Birchall

I’ve been thinking about returning to a story I posted here, and  finally finishing it – there’s a novel concept for you! Some may remember it as “The Darcys and Lord Byron in Venice,” and I posted twelve episodes sporadically over a year and a half, with the first episode on December 30, 2017, and …

Continue reading

Joking with Jane in January, Part Two, by Diana Birchall

There is always something to learn from Jane Austen. Even when you sit down to write a light piece picking out some of your favorites among her infinite jests, you notice things you never saw before, and come to new observations, new conclusions. Last week, when I divided her books into the first three last …

Continue reading

2021 Deck the Shelves in the Closet Book Sale

MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE! The Holiday season is in full swing. We’ve finished Thanksgiving (in the US) and Chanukkah, and Christmas Day is here. Our halls are decked and presents opened. How about something for those gift cards to tide you over in your quiet hours as you await New Year’s Day 2022? Like a great …

Continue reading

A Comfortable Coze with Mary Crawford by Diana Birchall

Jane Austen’s felicitious phrase, “a comfortable coze,” which we use as our banner theme for November (a month in need of a coze or two), comes from Mansfield Park. Fanny, preparing for her first ball, is perplexed about how to wear the cross given her by her sailor brother William, for she has no chain. …

Continue reading

Reading by the Fire: Fanny and the Geraniums by Diana Birchall

It had been an exceptionally wet October with winds and gales blowing around Mansfield Park almost daily, and Fanny was thankful to have recourse to her own dear East Room. This had been the Bertram sisters’ former school-room, now Fanny’s own refuge; but it was a chilly refuge in the inclement weather, for Fanny was …

Continue reading

Mary Crawford’s Harvest by Diana Birchall

  The only mention of the word harvest in Jane Austen’s major novels, as far as I can discover, takes place in Mansfield Park.  Not surprisingly, her “harvest scene” provides us with another opportunity to observe the cleverness and deliberation with which Jane Austen reveals her characters through subtle details. Each of the two paragraphs …

Continue reading

Load more