The color red gets a bad rap. 
It must have been a terrifying experience for ten-year-old Jane Eyre (or Jane Slayre in this case) to be confined to the eerie Red Room of Gateshead.  Locked-in with no escape.  Can […]

  Good can imagine Evil; but Evil cannot imagine Good.  - W. H. Auden
Blatant evil can easily be spotted within the pages of zombie and vampire books.  
But sometimes evil is vague and blurred.  
Although we […]

Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love. –  Jane Austen
But when one experiences both the pangs of disappointed love AND friendship….it’s a double whammy.  
Such is the case […]

I’m celebrating Women’s History Month in a number of literary ways.
First, in staying true to my Austen addiction, I (along with a talented musician friend) am presenting a Jane Austen program at the local public […]

I used to imagine a governess as someone who skipped about, guitar-in-hand, singing songs about raindrops-on-roses and whiskers-on-kittens.  Oh, the joyful life of a governess!  To run and spin like a top on a […]

I remember reading E. L. Doctorow’s, Welcome to Hard Times, years ago while I was stranded (along with a rock band) in the middle of Alabama. 
Our tour bus had broken down in a dusty rural town.  
As we waited […]

Reading Austen’s esteemed Emma for the second time around is a vastly different experience than the first. 
Jane uses the art of narrative-misdirection so incredibly well that the reader follows Jane’s twisting […]

Upon reading Mr. Robert Martin’s letter again some few months later, and having given it a great deal of thought, Harriet Smith felt it only natural to secretly send him a letter on Valentine’s Day.
*    *    *   […]

“That sweet, amiable Jane Fairfax!” said Mrs. John Knightley.– “It is so long since I have seen her, except now and then for a moment accidentally in town! What happiness it must be to her good old grandmother […]

“Emma has been meaning to read more ever since she was twelve years old.” 
That’s what Mr. Knightley tells us during his conversation with Mrs. Weston.  The fact is, Emma is unable to finish a project.
The […]

I watched the movie Cowboys and Aliens a couple of days ago with my husband and young son after being voted-down on my Return to the Planet of the Apes pick.  The majority ruled and the boys got their cowboys. […]