Category: literature
-
A Final Excerpt
I am sad to say that this will be my last post with Always Austen. To commemorate this moment, I thought I would share one more excerpt from 12 Months of Darcy. It is, of course, for March, and one of my favorites. This month, Elizabeth gets to see a softer side of Darcy. MARCH…
-
February with Darcy
It’s a bit early for Valentine’s Day, but I thought I would share the February scene from my 12 Months of Darcy collection. This grew out of my wondering how suspicious Wickham was about Darcy’s intentions towards Elizabeth. Enjoy! FEBRUARY “Look!” cried Lydia from the drawing room window. Kitty joined her and bounced on her…
-
What Did Other Authors Say About Jane Austen?
They loved her and hated her! Check out other author’s thoughts on Jane Austen.
-
THE Book
THE BOOK is that memorable, cherished book you read when you were school age. It was given to you by a parent, grandparent, teacher, or librarian. Most of our remembered BOOKS were enjoyable, but some were scary or sad or bad. Their common bond is that they made an impression that has lasted into adulthood…
-
Plans for 2026
It has been a few years since I’ve done this and it’s probably long overdue. There have been several changes happening in my life over the last few years, but the last time I “mapped them out” in a January post was before Always Austen started in 2023. Since that time, my husband retired; I…
-
Two Women, A World Apart
Two books give me joy in the New Year. The first, by Sarah Emsley, is The Austens, a novel about Jane Austen’s relationship with her sister-in-law, Fanny Palmer Austen. The second, by Rebecca Romney, is Jane Austen’s Bookshelf, nonfiction about women writers who shaped the English author. Both works are part of the onslaught of…
-
Marianne
#SenseAndSensibility #MrDarcy Hi friends, It’s been a toughish year, what with my husband’s – ultimately successful – operation for thymic mass cancer. (And no, you’ve prob. never heard of it. It accounts for fewer than 1% of cancers diagnosed in the UK, as a rule… but his surgeon has banished it.) Also on the bright…
-
An Early Christmas Gift
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas! And I’ve been going back through some older writings. Five years ago, I put together a collection of scenes called 12 Months of Darcy to give away to readers who signed up for my newsletter. I thought I would share December with you today. December A weak…
-
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…
-
The Free Indirect Discourse of Jane Austen
I tend to be a very black and white thinker, and I was told–as so many are in early writing classes–that an omniscient narrator is a bad idea. It leads to head-hopping; it’s old-fashioned; it’s not popular. Only attempt it if you’re a genius with literary aspirations. And I’m not paraphrasing, that is exactly what…