Following Austen

Top Ten Spiritual Jane Austen Places

I'm thrilled to post this!  (Thanks, BajaJaneite for sending in the link -- I've been wanting to share it with you all.)

I did a gallery for BeliefNet with pictures from my trip and thoughts on the spiritual Austen places I visited -- spiritual being rather loosely defined, as in perhaps relating to (ahem...) the cult of Colin Firth. ;-)

Check it out!  The pics are some of my absolute favorites.  They're also running an excerpt from my book.

Photo of the Roman Baths (copyright Lori Smith 2005)

Would Jane Austen Settle?

Breakpoint has published my op-ed in response to Lori Gottlieb's article in last month's Atlantic Monthly (Marry Him!) suggesting that single women should forget about romantic love and settle for "Mr. Okay" instead of waiting around for "Mr. Right."  What would Jane Austen say?  Ultimately, I think she would challenge our notions of love (and probably have a great deal of fun laughing at them as well).

Perhaps I should start by saying that I’m not incensed by this notion. I’m single, I’m 36, and I want to be married. I want to have kids. I actually believe, as Gottlieb ever-so-heretically asserts, that relationships (and primarily marriage) are still in many ways what define us as women.

What strikes me about all of this is that these are conversations we’ve been having for hundreds of years, all the way back to Jane Austen’s dear Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy (or perhaps more to the point here, Charlotte Lucas and the obsequious Mr. Collins. Could Charlotte have been happy that she settled? I doubt it). And as the film The Jane Austen Book Club pointed out, we’re still asking ourselves today, “What would Jane do?”

Would Jane settle? Absolutely not. Marriage in Austen’s day was all about settling, of course. Women who had no opportunity to earn their own living, needed financial security. Men as well were hoping to “settle” on a woman of means. The whole thing became a matter of business, which led to all sorts of mischief and misery. In that setting, Austen gives us poor, intelligent women hoping to marry for love. And because this is fiction, they do. (...)

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.

Pilgrim Radio Network interview

I've had the chance to do a bunch of radio interviews of late (thanks to the PR team at WaterBrook!) which has been fun.  My favorite was when John Young at WNIV in Atlanta asked me if Jane was a good kisser.  I think that may have been after asking me if I was a good kisser. 

Tomorrow Pilgrim Radio Network will air an interview on all their stations out west, but you can listen online as well.  It will run at 2:04 AM, 12:04 PM, and 9:04 PM PST. It was wonderful to have a chance to chat with Bill, who's just getting introduced to the world of Austen.

Boston Globe on Jane's religious following

Great piece by Richard Barlow at the Boston Globe this weekend:

From classic literature, religious lessons
Jane Austen, long revered in literature classes and more recently on movie and television screens, has become part of the iconography of another group: Christians.

Austen acolytes' hearts are being warmed this winter with a "Masterpiece" series of television movies based on the British novelist's books. The project boasts a particular Austen-Boston link, in that WGBH 2 produces "Masterpiece."

It is hardly surprising that public television sensed audience interest in the woman who penned such staples of English lit classes as "Sense and Sensibility" and "Pride and Prejudice." What's more intriguing is her particular appeal to Christian writers and readers. Last year, at least three Christian publishers brought out books about Austen.

This burst of interest might surprise some who are familiar with her writing. For one thing, Austen's characters who are clergy are a decidedly mixed bunch, some laudable, some loutish. And more importantly, Austen, in both her life and her literature, was not of the evangelical, religion-on-the-sleeve school.

In "A Walk with Jane Austen," published by WaterBrook, the evangelical imprint of Random House, author Lori Smith admits that some would cringe at the notion of Austen as a Christian writer. (...)

World Magazine review & interview

There's a lovely review and interview in World Magazine this week.  Unfortunately, you can't read the whole thing online (although you can subscribe for just $5.00):

A Jane Austen Valentine:  Author Lori Smith on what the great writer can teach us about life and love
Bookstores are glutted with books concerning Jane Austen. Many of them are bad, which means the occasional jewel risks being overlooked. A Walk with Jane Austen is a jewel. It combines genres—a bit of spiritual memoir, travel diary, and examination of Austen's life and work—to raise questions about grace, romance, family, community, and calling. Not a bad Valentine's Day gift for a woman who follows Jane. (...)

Some thoughts on Mansfield Park

I was debating about whether to post this now or wait until Sunday, but my thoughts on Mansfield Park have been posted over on the PBS.org blog, Remotely Connected.  I was thrilled to be asked to do this.  Check it out now, or wait until Sunday night and weigh in with your own opinion.

Fanny Price is a ninny.  (Forgive me, dear Jane.)  I’ve tried to like her and I can’t.

When I was first asked to blog about Mansfield Park, the editor mentioned that she saw “such similarity” between me and Fanny. I had to stop to consider whether or not that was an insult. (...)

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. (...)

Publishers Weekly article

A Walk with Jane was featured in an article in Pubishers Weekly's Religion BookLine email newsletter yesterday:

New Spiritual Memoir Follows Favorite Author

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a publisher in possession of a good frontlist must be in want of a book on Jane Austen. 

Or so it would seem this year, when a wave of Austen books and films promises to keep literary fans happy. Alongside book club darlings like Laurie Viera Rigler's Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict (Dutton, Aug.) come two 2007 Austen-themed films and, next year, Masterpiece Theater's ambitious plan to air television adaptations of all six Austen novels. Pass the crumpets, please. (...)