Author: Flynn

When Hat Becomes Statement, What Would Jane Austen Do?

~ Flynn ~ 1 Comment

img_0503At the Christmas market in Bryant Park,  my favorite shop is the one with wool goods from the Himalayas. When I saw this hat there, a few Decembers ago, I was smitten. It became my new favorite, my go-to winter hat.

Pink is not a color I wear much, nor do I favor hats with ears. But I love this hat! So silly, so distinctive, it brightens the darkest winter day. Dorkily large, it does not squeeze my head and  is lined with non-itchy polar fleece. The earpieces hang down like crazy Regency sideburns or those protective pieces on Viking helmets. I love my hat.

vikingThe other night I met up with a friend. “Oh, you’ve got one of those hats!” she said. I looked at her, perplexed “The pussy hats. You know. For the march.” I did not know — and yet. I was aware of the pussy bow kerfuffle. My sense, lately,  that people had been looking oddly at my hat — I’d told myself I was imagining things, but maybe I hadn’t been.

“I’ve had this hat for years,” I said. When I got home, I looked it up.  She was right of course.  First I laughed. My dorky pink hat had become a political statement! Then I paused. Could I keep wearing it? What would Jane Austen do? Continue reading →

Happy Birthday, Jane Austen!

~ Flynn ~ 3 Comments

Here was a woman about the year 1800 writing without hate, without bitterness, without fear, without preaching. That was how Shakespeare wrote, I thought, looking at ‘Antony and Cleopatra,’ and when people compare Shakespeare and Jane Austen, they may mean that the minds of both had consumed all impediments; and for that reason we do not know Jane Austen and we do not know Shakespeare, and for that reason Jane Austen pervades every word she wrote, and so does Shakespeare.

                                                                          –Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

Early this morning I walked the dog along the waterfront in the windy darkness, looking at the lights of Manhattan and wondering what Jane Austen would have made of the fact that she’s world-famous and still relevant today, nearly two and half centuries after she was born. I like to think she would have been amused — and not entirely surprised. Does genius recognize itself?

Over at Austenblog, there’s a giveaway of a book of essays that looks to  be excellent.  Sarah Emsley has a fascinating post about Jane Austen and grandparents. The BBC has a great article by Rebecca Smith about the daily routine at Chawton. And you can still enter the Goodreads giveaway for The Jane Austen Project right here. It runs until next Tuesday.

Rabbit or Writer: On Authenticity

~ Flynn ~ 4 Comments

220px-the_velveteen_rabbit_pg_1

I have an agent. I wrote a novel that sold to a Big 5 publisher. I  belong to two writing critique groups, and I live in Brooklyn. Yet when one of my newer writing critique group members asked me if I’d been to any residencies — not in a judging way, but in a friendly, encouraging tone — I froze, as if this were a trick question; a veiled insult; a failure of tact. But only people like you go to those, I thought but could not say. Real writers. Not only have I not gone to one; it would never occur to me to apply! Not that I wouldn’t want to —  just like I’d like to go horse trekking in Mongolia. Equally dreamy, equally improbable.

But later I started to think over this exchange, and to wonder. What would it take for me, like the Velveteen Rabbit, to become real? What does it take for anyone? Continue reading →

Jane Austen and the Author Photo

~ Flynn ~ Leave a comment
by Cassandra Austen, pencil and watercolour, circa 1810
by Cassandra Austen, pencil and watercolour, circa 1810

Jane Austen died on this date in, 1817,  not in possession of an author photo. This sketch by Cassandra is the most we know  about  what she looked like. I would say that I am fine with that, except I wrote an entire book in the effort to imagine what Jane Austen was  like, so clearly I am not.

I’ve been thinking about the  notion of the author photo a lot lately, a strange artifice that I had until recently accepted as a given: Continue reading →

‘Eligible’ and the Tradeoff of Updates

~ Flynn ~ 5 Comments

eligible-by-curtis-sittenfield-2016-x-200 I stayed up too late reading “Eligible”;  I snorted with laughter; I rejoiced in Curtis Sittenfeld’s clever updates  to plot points in the original and in her cool, dry wit.

Sittenfeld, an accomplished creator of her own plots and characters, here  was given the literary counterpart of a paint-by-number kit: Austen’s people, Austen’s plot, Austen’s wit. But make it modern, please.

Some things are obviously funny, like making Lydia and Kitty crass devotees of CrossFit and paleo diets; others more subtly so, Continue reading →