Following Austen

Fairfax County Library events and podcast

I'm thrilled to announce this.  A little while back I had the chance to do an interview with Sam Clay, director of the Fairfax County Library system, about A Walk with Jane Austen. The interview has now been posted on BookCast.  It was so fun.  I have to admit, I was literally giddy to meet the director of the Fairfax County Libraries.  I realized that my status as a nerd is completely confirmed.  I love libraries!  You know, in college, the guys voted me most likely to be a librarian.  I don't really think they meant that as a compliment.

(And in a James-Stanier-Clarke-like moment, Sam jokingly asked me if I might consider writing about his life. For the uninitiated, Clarke was librarian to the Prince Regent, and his requests that Jane write about his own life led to a series of very funny letters between them.)

I'll be speaking at several of the local libraries as well, starting tomorrow:

• February 12, Sherwood Regional Library, 7 PM
• March 6, Patrick Henry Library, 7 PM
• March 27, Kingstowne Library, 7 PM

Hope you can join us for one if you're here in the D.C. area.

Interview at JonalynFincher.com

Jonalyn Fincher has posted a two-part interview on her blog.  She's a sweetheart, one of those people I wish lived close by so we could just chat over coffee.  We met at the Calvin Festival on Faith & Writing two years ago (which I highly recommend -- I'm planning to go back this year).  She's also the author of Ruby Slippers: How the Soul of a Woman Brings Her Home.  Here she is with her little Welsh Corgi named Lady Jane.

I know that you live with the daily labor of living with Lyme’s disease alongside the work of continuing your writing and daily blog. How have you learned to embrace lament and honest painful expression within the often stifling milieu of sunshin-ey, smiley Christianity? As a woman what gives you courage to be      a woman of lament?

Living with Lyme disease, which means I deal with constant exhaustion, pushed me to depths I didn’t know existed. I could no longer pretend to be okay, I simply wasn’t. It took living through that experience for me to begin to understand lament, and I still think I have a lot to learn about how to process it and how it should be experienced. I’m comforted by the fact that there’s a long tradition of lament in Christianity, that David and the prophets felt no need to be smiley. I was struggling the other day, wavering between accusing God and trusting him, and I thought, “I wonder if that qualifies me to be a psalmist?” (...)       

Interview at She Plants a Vineyard

Tina Ann Forkner has posted an interview over at her blog, She Plants a Vineyard, part of a whole series they're doing on Austen-related things.  Tina is author of the novel Ruby Among Us, which will be available in May from WaterBrook.  Can't wait to read it.

SPV: Why did you choose to write a memoir at this point in your life?

Lori: I’m not sure if I chose to or if it just happened. I originally expected to be writing a book about Austen, and was surprised when I started writing and my own stories started coming out. There’s more of me in it than I expected. (...)