Return to home page



Inspired by Jane Austen

My dear departed Aunt Lois gave me my first taste of Austen. She often gave me and my siblings books for Christmas, or birthdays--the Classics: Black Beauty, Beautiful Joe, Little Women, Eight Cousins, The Borrowers, Mansfield Park, and Pride and Prejudice. Great books. Wonderful reading for young minds. I was influenced by every one of them, but none more so than Jane Austen's works.

The language captivates me. Austen's subtle, tongue-in-cheek wit is coupled at times with almost vaudevillian humor. Here is snippy dialogue that might be interpreted in many way, and characters who seem at complete odds with one another, and yet work toward the same end. Jane Austen's characters are unforgettably quirky, flawed, witty, amusing, and capable of great growth and understanding even in a society highly confined by mores and manners. Her heroines inspired me. More than anything else, however, I am influenced by Jane Austen's use of theme in her cherished works. The subtleties of those themes, layered masterfully and with unfailing wit through her best work, capture my attention more than any other aspect of her writing.

I write Regencies because of Jane Austen. I write theme, think theme, and live a life based on personal themes, because of Jane Austen, and all because of Aunt Lois, and the gift she gave me, at a very early age, of Jane Austen.