Happy New Year! Also, my best wishes to you all for peace and dignity on this day celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. For me, 2023 is already off to a lovely start. Case in point? I have the great privilege of sharing this interview with our own Lucy Marin as my first post of …
Happy day-after Boxing Day! Am I allowed to wish you a happy Boxing Day even if I’m an American living in America who has never in her life celebrated Boxing Day? It’s one of those holidays that I’m sure I’ve romanticized, so if you do celebrate Boxing Day, I’d love to hear what the day …
MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE! The Holiday season is in full swing. We’ve finished Thanksgiving (in the US) and Chanukkah, and Christmas Day coming fast. We’re decking our halls and wrapping our presents. How about something to tide you over in your quiet hours as you await New Year’s Day 2023? Like a great book! This is …
Happy November—and for those of you who celebrate the holiday, Happy American Thanksgiving! I am thankful to be part of a community that takes such pleasure in Jane Austen’s works. I’m also thankful for your patience! Over a month ago, I began a “vignette” called “Dispelling the Gloom,” based on October’s magic and malevolence theme. …
Happy end of October! Below you’ll find Part III of the story I began here and continued here, in honor of this month’s theme, Which Witch: Magic and Malevolence in Austen. Many years ago, when I was posting regularly on one of the fan boards, I claimed to be the Wickham of my own life—and …
Greetings, Austen Friends! I hope October has been as lovely for you as it’s been for me. You should see the trees around my house: flaming reds, sunset oranges, lemon yellows…I find myself wanting to spend all my time taking walks and staring up at trees. However, I do occasionally have to teach…and I get …
Happy October! When I saw this month’s theme—“Which Witch: Magic and Malevolence in Austen”—I was frightened, terribly frightened! While magic and malevolence are perfect concepts for the month of Halloween, I have never once attempted a fantastical Austenesque variation. Many authors—many here at Austen Variations—have written compelling Austenesque fantasies; indeed, they have taken some of …
Greetings! I return to posting with no little embarrassment. Indeed, I’m blushing like Charles Bingley in Lucy Marin’s fabulous short story, “The Travails of Charles Bingley.” Look at me, showing up in Meryton months and months after I departed without explanation! (But Jane, I have missed you—truly!) I can make no excuses. Nonetheless, I will …
Greetings, friends! Happy 2022! I’m sorry I disappeared from Austen Variations (and from the Internet more generally) these past few months. In late July, I was asked, unexpectedly, to teach high school English. What an adventure! Though I often feel as if I don’t know what I’m doing, I’ve had a great experience so far. …
When Friday the thirteenth occurs during a summer month, it never seems quite as spooky to me as when it falls in October. Still, it is Friday the thirteenth, and while Austen was surely too rational to care much for superstitions, I am not a particularly rational person. So, here is a short scene from …
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