We Did It, Jane.
The Summer of Jane Austen: Goals met, writers beloved, and plans for the rest of the season.
I won’t beat around the bush: on July 19th I reached my goal for the Jane Austen Society of North America’s Annual General Meeting, with YOUR help! Through a combination of Medium earnings, paid subscriptions to my Substack, Twitter ad revenue (I’ll never call it X), Ko-fi tips and a few kind gifts from family and friends (you know who you are) I have saved enough to cover all anticipated costs for my trip to the JASNA AGM this October. I would say that I am completely and perfectly and incandescently happy, because it’s a good quote to describe my feelings at the moment, but I would not wish to deceive anyone into thinking it is an Austen quote. (It’s not. It’s from the screenplay of the 2005 Pride and Prejudice film.)
Thank you all so much. I am incredibly grateful.
I do not intend to stop writing about Jane Austen this summer just because I met my goal (I’m having fun with this series, and any royalty monies can still get socked away for my college fund) but as you may have noticed I have slowed down a bit in recent weeks. I just finished a week of volunteering with Vacation Bible School at my church (imagine that meme of Frodo leaving the fires of Mount Doom, if you will) and I recently started a new…