Jane Austen Addict Blog

Holiday Readathon Giveaway (& De-Stress Central)

"This year is going to be different. This year I refuse to get stressed out during the holidays." 

This year we at Austen Addict Central would like to help you keep that promise.

We've got tips to help you melt away the stress of the holidays. And we've got a HOLIDAY READATHON DE-STRESSING PRIZE PACK that may just have your name on it:

• a bottle of limited edition MERRY CHRISTMAS ESSENTIAL OIL BLEND by Dharmaceuticals**
• a copy of THE JOURNEYS OF JOHN AND JULIA: GENESIS by Aurelia
• a signed copy of CONFESSIONS OF A JANE AUSTEN ADDICT
• a signed copy of RUDE AWAKENINGS OF A JANE AUSTEN ADDICT

**I've got Merry Christmas blend diffusing as I write this. Cinnamon, nutmeg, lemon, and mandarin essential oils blended into an indescribably comforting melange of scent. I can just feel the stress melting away...

IT'S SUPER EASY TO ENTER: Just visit the Rafflecopter below. 

FOR MORE CHANCES TO WIN: Post a blog comment here that tells us about your favorite holiday de-stressors. (My list is after the Rafflecopter.) a Rafflecopter giveaway

 This giveaway is international and ends at midnight, Dec. 7th.

HERE's MY LIST:

My go-to read(s) that make me feel right with the world again:

• Persuasion by Jane Austen--because it's all about second chances that arrive when you least expect them.
• The Journeys of John and Julia: Genesis by Aurelia--because it's all about the magic that's all around us, whether or not we believe it's so.
• Any of Jane Austen's other major works, because they are highly entertaining and deeply satisfying on many levels. 

My favorite relaxing indulgence(s) that help me remember what this season is all about:

• Merry Christmas essential oil blend by Dharmaceuticals. I diffuse it in my aroma lamp every day as soon as the season starts, all the way through New Year’s Day. I started buying this blend two years ago, and it was the first time I could remember having stress-free holidays. I’m not kidding: this is magic in a bottle. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. And it fills my home with the most intoxicating blend of cinnamon, vanilla, and a host of other delicious scents. 
• I also love the comforting familiarity of my favorite feel-good movies. I’ll watch as many as I have time to do. Love, Actually; The Apartment, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Bend it Like Beckham, Persuasion (the one with Ciaran Hinds and Amanda Root), and Bride and Prejudice are just a sampling of my go-to’s. If it’s about the power of love and friendship, then count me in.

My favorite ways to shine happiness on others:

• Cooking holiday meals and treats for friends and family.
• Sharing my good fortune by making a donation to organizations who help homeless adults and children. An excellent organization to which I donated this year is Union Station Homeless Services, which does good work in my very own town of Pasadena, CA. 

Check out more mini-challenges, giveaways, and ways to give back at the annual Holiday Readathon, hosted by WhoRUblog.com.

 

The Holiday Readathon is almost here!

Can you believe it's that time again? The annual Holiday Readathon, hosted by WhoRuBlog, is all about celebrating the joy of reading and sharing that happiness with others. Plus there are tons of prizes you can win.

Sign up for the fun at WhoRublog. Be inspired. Answer the mini-challenges of participating guest authors and bloggers. I'll be participating and doing a giveaway, too, so stay tuned...

 

V-Day Thoughts, via Grey's Anatomy and Jane Austen

It's that time of year again, when women feel like total losers for being single or wait for their men to pass or fail the big Valentine's Day test. Will he screw up and totally forget, buy a cheap trinket instead of the one thing he knows you want, or, even more stressful and high stakes, will he finally pop the question?

Could there be anything more insane than this holiday that's supposed to be all about love?

I was watching the GREY'S ANATOMY Valentine's Day episode today, and one of the characters was a florist who was so exhausted and stressed from the V-Day rush that he accidentally crashed his delivery van into the ER.

Almost dying in service to Valentine's Day madness was a big wake-up call to this florist, who said he would never stress himself out over this holiday again:

"People call you up you know, they ask you, make something beautiful. Yeah, so some sorry schlep can forget they've been treated like crap every day of the year…Like my flowers are magic or something. But I bought it. Nearly killed myself trying to make sure everyone got their little miracle. What a joke. People oughta just stop being so awful to each other, you know? Leave me out of it."

My biggest takeaway from that speech? "People oughta just stop being so awful to each other."

Not bad advice. If we were good to the people we supposedly love every day, we wouldn't have to prove our love on that one day of the year. We could be more like Jane Bennet of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, or Catherine Morland of NORTHANGER ABBEY, or Anne Elliot of PERSUASION. In Austen, kindness is always rewarded, and often with love. Could there be a better recipe for happiness than that?

[Gazing at photos of gorgeous actors playing Austen heroes can also be quite helpful.]

One thing's for sure. Feeling entitled to love, or a certain type of bouquet, or a necklace, or a diamond ring, is a sure recipe for misery.

Just ask that lady in GREY'S ANATOMY who was furious at her admittedly clueless boyfriend for once again giving her a velvet jewelry box on V-Day without a ring inside. I won't spoil it for you if you haven't seen it. It's worth watching.

And so is almost every Jane Austen adaptation ever made for the big or small screen. So if you don't expect to get that perfect bouquet, piece of jewelry, or declaration of love today, be kind. To others. To yourself. Fire up the Blu-ray or the Netflix queue and watch BRIDE AND PREJUDICE or the Colin Firth P&P or the Gwyneth Paltrow EMMA (just a few of my faves) or PERSUASION with Amanda Root and Ciaran Hinds.  Even better, read PERSUASION (my favorite Austen novel) or PRIDE AND PREJUDICE or NORTHANGER ABBEY or, let's face it, any of the six. You'll feel much better, I promise.

Be happy. And wish yourself a very happy Valentine's Day. 

 

Do One Nice Thing, Jane Austen Style.

I am reading a lovely book by my friend Debbie Tenzer, called DO ONE NICE THING. If you've ever felt overwhelmed by all the suffering in the world and felt powerless to do anything about it, this book will help change all that.

Because there is something you can do. Even if you're as busy as most people are in this crazy multi-tasking overly scheduled world. Even if you don't have deep pockets.

From grocery shopping for a sick friend to organizing donations of canned goods to a local food bank to making a $25 micro-loan that changes a life in a remote part of the planet, there are dozens of accessible Nice Things that you can do in this book.

And on Debbie's website, too.

So what does all this have to do with Jane Austen? Aside from the fact that in my world, everything has something to do with Jane Austen?

A lot, actually.

Jane Austen had plenty to say about everyday acts of kindness towards our fellow humans. Ladies of Austen's class were expected to care for the poor and relieve their sufferings through gifts of food, money, and clothes, and through personal visits to needy families in the parish.

But that didn't mean one had to be a saint then--or today--in order to  Do One Nice Thing. Nor did one have to be a saint in Jane Austen's day. Consider the vain, deluded, matchmaking-obsessed heroine of EMMA. Helping those in need is one of the qualities that make her loveable in spite of her flaws:

Emma was very compassionate; and the distresses of the poor were as sure of relief from her personal attention and kindness, her counsel and her patience, as from her purse.

Even the relatively impoverished, disabled Mrs. Smith in PERSUASION was making thread-cases that she sold in order to help those less fortunate than she.

Contrast that with the selfishness of Elizabeth Elliot in PERSUASION, who, upon hearing that her family is in debt and must make reductions to its customary state of luxury, responds as follows:

Elizabeth, to do her justice, had, in the first ardour of female alarm, set seriously to think what could be done, and had finally proposed these two branches of economy, to cut off some unnecessary charities, and to refrain from new furnishing the drawing-room.

In Jane Austen's world, kindness did not end with charitable acts to one's neighbors. Care for the well-being of one's friends and family was as essential then as it is today. Which is why the selfish and miserly John and Fanny Dashwood of SENSE AND SENSIBILITY are comic figures as they debate John's deathbed promise to his father to help provide for the dying man's widow and three daughters.

Says Fanny Dashwood of the widow and children's financial state:

"Five hundred a year! I am sure I cannot imagine how they will spend half of it; and as to your giving them more, it is quite absurd to think of it. They will be much more able to give you something."

Despite Austen's skewering of the selfish and miserly, she is always practical in her sensibilities. Take this line from Emma:

"If we feel for the wretched, enough to do all we can for them, the rest is empty sympathy, only distressing to ourselves."

So stop distressing yourself and do something. Just DO ONE NICE THING. Start here. Start now. You'll feel so much better. And more important, you will spread happiness to others. And they to others. And so on.

 

 

Library Love, and a Reading at Glendale Public Library

Many people are surprised when I tell them that I grew up in a house with only a handful of books. Neither of my parents were readers—my mother has, in recent years become a voracious reader—but luckily back then there were three ways by which I was able to indulge my incessant need for books: the bookmobile that visited my neighborhood, the library bus that took me to my local public library, and my school library.

 

[Two kinds of bookmobiles: One from the Meridian Library in Meridian, Idaho; and the other from the Camel Book Drive in Kenya. For more information about the wonderful Camel Book Drive,* and to see how you can help, click here.

For me, the library was a magical place where smiling ladies handed me the keys to endless doors that opened onto exciting new worlds and infinite possibilities. Libraries were the place where I discovered the  sanctuary of story. The wonder of imagination. The power of the word.

Were it not for libraries and librarians, I would not be who I am today.  Which is why I will always be grateful to librarians, library support staff, and all the generous folks who support these sanctuaries and champions of reading.

And so I am particularly excited to be doing a reading and signing of RUDE AWAKENINGS OF A JANE AUSTEN ADDICT at Glendale Public Library.  This is a particularly vibrant, exciting place with lots of community events and a dynamic staff whose mission is "to enrich life, foster literacy, inspire intellectual curiosity and stimulate the imagination."

And they're also a lot of fun.

So take a break from the heat and have a glass of iced tea with me at Glendale Public Library. I look forward to seeing you there!

Details:

Thursday, August 20
7 PM
Reading and Signing of RUDE AWAKENINGS OF A JANE AUSTEN ADDICT
Glendale Public Library Auditorium
222 East Harvard Street, Glendale
(818) 548-2042
Click here for a map.
Click here for parking.

*Author Masha Hamilton wrote a beautiful novel about this real-life camel book drive called The Camel Bookmobile. I highly recommend it!

Read to Kids--and spread some happiness around

Writers tend to be a tad on the obsessive side. A little too caught up in our own little worlds. After all, we sit at our desks immersed in stories that go on inside our heads. And sometimes it's easy to forget that there is actually a world full of other human beings out there. Which is why I like to unchain myself from my desk now and then and actually try to connect with other human beings. Maybe even spread some happiness around.

Recently I had the privilege of doing just that when I visited Macfarlane Park School for International Studies in Tampa, Florida, where my nephew Eli attends first grade. I read a story to his class, and all I can say is that if you are ever feeling disconnected, low, or sorry for your self, I have the cure. Call up your local elementary school and read a storybook to a room full of first-graders. You will rediscover all the childlike wonder and love of story that got you reading or writing in the first place.  

These kids were so excited they could barely contain their energy. In fact, their teacher, a lovely young woman named Holly Madiedo, gave them a time-out in the middle of story time so they could shake out all that excess energy. She also showed me how she got the kids to start writing their own stories. First graders! Holly is an extraordinarily dedicated teacher, and what a privilege it was to meet her. Holly's also a dedicated writer, writes every day and who knows where she gets the energy after a day with those first-graders, but I've no doubt I will one day see her stories in print.

After saying good-bye to Ms. Madiedo's class, I headed over to Mrs. Nestor's fourth-grade class, where I talked about—of all things—having one's writing edited! Yes, these were fourth-graders. It seems they had just had their first experience having their writing commented on and edited by their wonderful teacher, and they were having a hard time dealing with the feedback. So I told them that it's not any different for adults like me and that the trick is to play the "what if" game. What if I did change that sentence the way my teacher/editor suggested it? What if I might actually like it? It doesn't hurt to try.

The kids loved hearing that adults go through the same things they do with their writing. And what questions they asked me! One little boy asked me what inspires me; another asked what I do when I don't know what to write. The answer to the first is everything around me if I open myself to it. The second is something I've talked about in my writing workshops, and that's having fun with being in the place of "I don't know." I don't know what's going to happen next in my story. I have no idea what to write. And isn't that great? Because I just KNOW that something wonderful is going to come to me. And you know what? It does.

So if you're feeling low about the world, your life, or the state of the economy, there is definitely something you can do. Read to a child. Even better—read to a classroom full of children. I can guarantee there are plenty of overworked, dedicated teachers who would love to have you visit their classroom and share your excitement about your love of books. And pass that on to a child.

There are even organizations that can help you get started, if you don't feel quite up to doing it on your own. Here's a wonderful organization that I participated in--Readingtokids.org. They're in the Los Angeles area. For an organization in your area, just do a Google search with the keywords "reading to kids" or "reading to children" and the name of your city, and I'm sure you'll come up with something perfect. 

And by the way, it's never to young to start reading Jane Austen to kids. But that's the subject of another post to come...