About this Event
Take a trip back in time to the Regency-era life of Jane Austen, one of literature’s most beloved novelists, with this captivating exploration of her works and the timeless themes of romance, family, and society.
Pocket Portraits: Jane Austen takes you through the moments of Jane Austen’s life—some well-known and some which may be unexpected. These are the moments that shaped her six published novels, which draw deeply on themes of family, agency, philosophy, and love. From excerpts of her swoon-worthy tales like Pride and Prejudice and Emma to insight into Austen’s social commentary and why her works still leave their mark on contemporary pop culture, this book paints a vivid portrait of the complicated woman behind the quill.
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JANET LEWIS SAIDI is the creator of The Austen Connection, a public-humanities and journalism project that connects Austen’s literature to the pop-culture and current events of our world today. The project has been featured in publications such as Electric Lit, the Christian Science Monitor, and at national and international conferences such as Melbourne’s AustenCon and the Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA) AGM. A professor at the Missouri School of Journalism, Janet has taught writing, editing, and producing for 14 years. In addition to her work as a producer at KBIA, her journalistic work has appeared on NPR, the BBC, PBS, and in the Los Angeles Times and the Christian Science Monitor.
KATHERINE J. CHEN is the author of Joan: A Novel of Joan of Arc (Random House US / Hodder & Stoughton UK), which won the 2023 American Library in Paris Book Award and has been translated into nine languages, and Mary B (Random House US). Her essays and reviews have appeared in The New York Times Book Review, the Times Literary Supplement, The Telegraph, The Wall Street Journal, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Electric Literature, Literary Hub, and other publications, with forthcoming work elsewhere. She is a graduate of Princeton University and Boston University’s MFA program in Fiction and is pursuing her doctoral degree in English at Brown University, where she is studying Henry James. Her next book, which is under contract with Random House, will explore through a realist lens the complex and violent world of Arthurian legend, focusing on the sibling dynamic between Morgan le Fay and King Arthur.
TABRIZIA JONES is a librarian by day and book blogger by night. She is the founder of the website, cup of tea with that book, please, a blog full of book reviews, recommendations, author events, and of course, tea! She is also one of the co-hosts of the Fake Book Club, a conversational podcast where they talk about a variety of topics, from movies, music, hobbies, life, and occasionally, the books they are reading. Follow her on Instagram: @cupofteajones and visit the website: https://cupofteawiththatbookplease.com/.
SARAH ROSE KEARNS is a playwright, performer, and lifelong Austen enthusiast. Her stage adaptation of Persuasion is being produced this fall at Chesapeake Shakespeare Company in Baltimore; while her one-act play Manydown, which imagines one important night in the lives of Jane Austen and her sister Cassandra, was recently adapted as a short film by writer-director Prerna Ramachandra and is set for release in 2026. Rose serves as co-Regional Coordinator for the Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA) New York Metropolitan Region — and also as the Artistic Director of The Holy Theatre, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit arts organization with a mission to make plays and other gatherings that leave people feeling nourished, connected, and more able to be brave. www.sarahrosekearns.com
[ABOUT THIS EVENT: The rear half of the store will be used exclusively for this event. The front bar will be open to the public for drinking & chatting. Book browsing will be limited to a few display tables and shelves closest to the front of the store.]
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Book Club Bar, 197 East 3rd Street, New York, United States
USD 0.00
