![]() My librarian friend was the one who suggested my derby name, Stone Cold Jane Austen. (He’s also an Austen scholar and a professor.) But it was one of my graduate students and a special collections librarian who got me into roller derby. I even ended up meeting my husband over a conversation about Austen. I went on to get my PhD in English directly after that, so I’ve now had several decades to teach British women’s writings, including Austen, to college students. ![]() My mother’s persistence worked on me, because I became the first in my family to graduate from college, with an English major. I love that Austen has been be handed-down that way, too-by aspirational word-of-mouth. She just knew that Austen was an author you were supposed to read, and she wanted me to get an education. It was only many years later that I learned that my mother had never read it herself. It was maybe the third time that I started Pride and Prejudice that it just clicked somehow, and I was hooked. It became a favorite book. Austen’s language seemed so impenetrable and stiff. In my case, it was my mother who started it. ![]() Greer: Tell us about a woman from the past who has inspired your writing.ĭevoney: Jane Austen inspires me on a daily basis. Like a lot of Janeites, I discovered Austen’s novels in my teens. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |