Author: Don Jacobson
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A Valedictory Bow
As with all things, ends are inevitable. This will be my last post for Always Austen as the blog site winds down. Hard to believe this will be my forty-second post here at Always Austen! However, posts and all that mean little without the presence of a woman, an author, and, I dare say, a…
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When is it Alright to Write Already?
Many Facebook posts are cyclical. Topics rise and fall as interest does, appearing fresh and current about every three or four years. Social media has been alive and kicking for slightly more than two decades, so themes that were broached in 2005 will appear again in 2010, 2015, and so on. One recent moldy oldie…
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Austen and AI: Steak or Sausage
All actual or imaginary characters are treated as fiction. Any resemblance to people living or dead is coincidental. The author’s imagination and hard work brought this work of fiction to life. At no point in this body of work has Artificial Intelligence (AI) been employed to write it. Use of this work to train Artificial…
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Pleasure, Pain, and Austen
As I reflect on the tenth anniversary of the opening stanzas of the Bennet Wardrobe Series, I have been considering how the nine volumes reflect much of my philosophy, gleaned from a lifetime of experiences at both ends of life’s emotional spectrum. Pleasure and Pain are essential aspects of life and must be understood in…
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Making Modern Classic Characters
Austenesque authors have, in recent years, begun to explore the concept of extracting classic characters from their Regency worlds and inserting them into (usually) modern environments. ’Tis neither my place nor my inclination to assess whether these variations from tradition are appropriate or not. Of course, I sent the Bennet Wardrobe protagonists and antagonists all…
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The Rules of Austenesque Fiction
Before I wrote this column, I listened to Benjamin Grosvenor’s performance—with the Royal Liverpool Phil—of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. Gershwin’s work played a central part in the opening movement of the Bennet Wardrobe Series, The Keeper: Mary Bennet’s Extraordinary Journey. The music allows us to find something familiar that serves to link the Mary…
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Point of Personal Privilege
Today, I muse about the Austenesque genre from the perspective of my ten years of publishing Austenesque fiction. Our #Austenesque world is one of the older ones regarding variations of a popular author. The first identifiable Austenesque Variation, Sybil Brinton’s Old Friends and New Fancies, was published in 1913. This credible mash-up crossover brought Austen’s…
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Blackbirds in Austen’s World
The war widow: sentimental depiction of a grieving woman whose husband has gone to fight in the South African War. Photograph of The Boer War, a painting by John Byam Shaw. &&&& These reflections upon military widowhood in Austen’s time found root in the first and seventh volumes of the Bennet Wardrobe Series, where Lydia…
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Setting the Stage
For a JAFF author, the plot is queen. A simple statement, I think, revealing a fundamental truth about our genre. An author can comfortably use the geography supplied by Austen to offer stories to readers thoroughly familiar with the lay of the land or building. Hundreds of stories have spoken of Pemberley glowing in the…
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Freud and Writing Austenesque Fiction
Consider the Canon. Jane Austen is frequently thin on details and does not offer much data about the Regency’s social environment. She rarely addresses the great questions of the day, except for suggesting that Tom Bertram’s time in the West Indies left him scarred and damaged. The same holds for settings. She does not expend…