I promised to take you on a tour of an English shrubbery, as Kim Wilson describes it in her beautiful book In the Garden with Jane Austen. (Please see my last post if you want more information about the book.) The English garden was built to be experienced by walking through it and discovering surprising elements--vistas, benches, [...]

At last, spring has hit Northern Ohio.  Well, actually, I think we skipped spring and went right into summer.  Believe it or not, today the temp here (90-ish) is going to be hotter than Miami, FL!  Okay, those were some shots from my garden.  I love flowers!                                             I'd like to share some things I learned from [...]

I have a line in my short story for the Jane Austen Made Me Do It Short Story Contest that harkens back to Darcy's second proposal in Pride and Prejudice.  My line, spoken by a very contemporary British man, the hero (so to speak) of my story, is:  "I can't stop thinking about you.  But one word from you [...]

In my short story, The Lost Portrait of Jane Austen, I imagined that an artist painted her a proper portrait.  But in real life, Jane Austen never sat for a formal portrait.   (In her family of 5 brothers and 1sister, all her brothers except her handicapped brother George had formal portraits.  Cassandra had a silhouette [...]