10 Tuesday Jul 2012
Posted in Images, Jane Austen
Just posted this over at AustenQuotes, but wanted to share here, too. For all the Matthew Macfadyen fans out there.
To be fair, this is not a saying Jane Austen came up with, but one that was in use already, and one she used jokingly in a letter to her sister about their neighbor, James Digweed.
Also, added new Pinterest buttons. Join me over there!
21 Thursday Jun 2012
Posted in Jane Austen, Other writers
Okay, people, it’s gone too far.
Apparently, this is a counting book. As in, “2 rich gentlemen, 3 houses, 4 marriage proposals.” The same company also does Jane Eyre and Romeo & Juliet for toddlers. (How does Romeo & Juliet end? “2 suicides”? Ack! Not for toddlers!)
Am I crazy? Because the book seems to be selling well on Amazon, so apparently lots of people love the idea.
Thanks to my friend Catherine for sending me this.
05 Monday Mar 2012
Posted in Jane Austen, Publishing
Did you know? Jane Austen was self-published. Yes! Can you imagine? Jane Austen — one of our Best Writers Ever — could not get a publisher to take a chance on her. And not just for her first book. Three of the four books published during her lifetime were self-published. (I must thank Juliette Wells for drawing my attention to this in a conversation we had a couple years ago.)
Of course, writers love hearing stories like this, because if you’re having trouble getting a publishing house to take you on, it makes you feel like maybe you aren’t the problem. Maybe you really are an unrecognized genius who will go down in the annals of history as having permanently changed the course of the novel and your works will enlighten readers for hundreds of years to come. The publishers are wrong about you, just like they were wrong about Austen. Continue reading »