“Such I Was from One-and-Twenty to Nine-and-Twenty” (And Continue Still)

I went to the JASNA AGM in 2016 and I’m going again in 2024. A lot has changed. And yet… not.

At the 2016 AGM with my bestie (right), wearing a totally ironic t-shirt (left) that I’ll talk about below.

I am a third of the way there. Whoa-oh! Living on a prayer (and not a lot of sleep these days, hence my cringey and outdated song references).

By “there,” of course, I am referring to the Jane Austen Society of North America’s Annual General Meeting, known as the AGM to in-the-know Janeites and “the Austen conference” to my longsuffering husband who does not have the brain space for one more acronym. He has enough to keep track of with all my internet friends, some of whom have the same name. (Shout-out to Lauren A and Lauren K, I love you guys.)

At the beginning of this Endeavor I outlined my plan to write as much as I possibly could this summer, both here on Medium and also on Substack, in an attempt to garner enough pecuniary support (via paid Substack subscriptions, Medium reader revenue, and “tips” on Ko-fi) to buy a ticket to the conference and pay for my lodging and travel to go there. I am delighted to announce that after such an overwhelming outpouring of support, I registered for the conference as soon as the online portal opened on June 19th. THANK YOU to everyone who read, shared, contributed, clicked on…