The Summer of Jane Austen
Introducing a series of essays on my favorite author, with a worthy Goal in mind
In 2016, my best friend and I joined the Jane Austen Society of North America and attended that organization’s Annual General Meeting, a conference held over three days in a big hotel in Washington, D.C. Then, in a summary akin to that of a proposal at the end of an Austen novel, life happened. We both dated wonderful men, got engaged, then married. I had two children. She went back to school. I went back to school. She moved around the country. I stayed put in a nice little house in a suburb. Despite the miles between us, we kept in touch. We kept our love for our very favorite author. (That’s Jane Austen, in case you’re a dull elf who did not figure that out from the title of this piece or the subtitle or the header image or the contents of this paragraph.)
Now, eight years later, life is very different but we want to go to the JASNA AGM again. There is much to be planned — travel to arrange, childcare to arrange and rearrange, PTO to be taken, et cetera and so forth — but we want to make it happen. These last few years have contained a lot of joy, to be sure, but have also had their share of work and worry. (Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery; I quit these odious subjects as soon as I can.) An adventure together to a conference focusing on the writer we both love best seems a splendid way to reconnect, relax, and rekindle our literary efforts. (We both like to write, in case you hadn’t picked up on that on my part at least.)
The problem is that going to this conference costs several hundred dollars, and the travel and accommodations to make the trip happen will cost a good bit too. Sadly, neither of us have a fortune of ten thousand or even five thousand a year. My best friend and her husband are in the throes of graduate school and the costs associated with that worthy endeavor, and my husband and I have a mortgage and two small children who like to eat. We do not have much money to fund this trip, and sadly the Rollings Reliable Baking Powder Company has at the time of this writing STILL not reached out to offer me their financial support in exchange for sponsored melodrama. (That’s an allusion to a different author — L.M. Montgomery — for those playing along at home.)
What I do have, in abundance, is a plethora of opinions about Jane Austen’s novels. (What I do not have in great abundance is time but we’ll figure that one out as we go.) I have a Medium account. I have a laptop with a working keyboard. So I am going to write articles to be published behind the paywall here, and I am going to submit pieces to paying publications, and I am going to publish on Substack, and in so doing I hope to earn enough over the course of the summer to pay for the Annual General Meeting.
I hope you will join me.
This endeavor on my part requires nothing from you on your part except to read what I am putting before you now (excellent work thus far; thank you!) and, if you are feeling terribly generous, to share it on the social media platform of your choice. If you are a paying member on Medium, leaving claps and comments and the like will boost my member payments. If you are a free member, engaging with my work will still help me in the long run and I thank you sincerely for using one of your limited articles to read something from me. It’s an honor!
I shall return to this post as I publish each piece, and will link them all here as they are completed.
In conclusion, I suppose I may butcher a quote from A Lady herself, and say that I write not for Fame, but only with a view to pecuniary Emolument.
Some previous Austen-related scribblings…
