By Elizabeth Jewell Sara Tavela led the May meeting, which featured Dr. Susan Allen Ford speaking about her book, What Jane Austen’s Characters Read (and Why). Ford was a professor of English at Delta State University and has been the editor of Persuasions: the Jane Austen Journal and Persuasions On-Line since 2006. She will be a plenary speaker at the…
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By Elizabeth Jewell JASNA President Mary Mintz presented “Jane Austen in American Periodicals: Highlights of the First Hundred Years.” She began by saluting the contributions of Karin Wiberg, Sara Tavela, and Gisele Rankin to the NC chapter of JASNA. Mintz covered both the people who praised Jane Austen—often other women writers—and the reviews that were less appreciative. Her discussion of…
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The March winds may have been blustering, but JASNA NC couldn’t resist the call of Mary Jane Curry’s Zoom presentation “Wild Nature: An Exploration.” Curry’s talk tackled the role of nature in Jane Austen’s novels, a topic discussed in detail in Jane Austen and Nature: The Novels as Pastoral Literature. Thirty-seven Austen fans from as far away as Wales relished…
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By Bill Gaither Members gathered on February 16, 2025, for a stimulating and sometimes impassioned discussion of the poetry of Phillis Wheatley, an American contemporary of Jane Austen and the first African-American author to publish a book of poetry. The discussion was ably led by regional coordinator Sara Tavela, who also provided an introduction to the life and poetry of Wheatley. This was a…
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By Elizabeth Jewell Sara Tavela welcomed us to the “Jane-uary” meeting. As we were a smaller group, we decided to remain a larger group to share the stories of how each member originally became interested in Jane Austen and her works. Sara came to Jane Austen in elementary school through the illustrated classics for children; the first she read was…
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