The Alabama Writers’ Forum
The Alabama Writers’ Forum, a partnership program of the Alabama State Council on the Arts, works to cultivate our state’s literary culture. We do that through supporting writers at all stages. We encourage our young writers to find their creative voice through the Father Goose Poetry Festival for Kids!–and through our Alabama High School Literary Arts Awards. We support the work of our state’s literary community through our Alabama Authors Directory, First Draft magazine, and other programming and opportunities for writers across the state. And we celebrate our state’s rich literary legacy through the Alabama Writers Hall of Fame. We are, above all, a community of writers united by our desire to advance the literary arts in Alabama. If that describes you — join us! There are many ways to get involved.
Jane Austen on Nature
Jane Austen on Nature: The Novels as Pastoral Literature By Mary Jane Curry McFarland & Company, Inc.; 2024 Paperback: $29.95 Genre: Nonfiction Reviewed by Katharine Armbrester Perhaps, along with the romance and sly humor, another reason for Jane Austen’s enduring popularity is the escape into the English countryside that both her novels and their film adaptations offer. Some of the most memorable (and humorous) scenes in Emma or the ever-popular Pride and Prejudice take place in gardens. One of the most picturesque—and funny, Austen is always funny—scenes in Ang Lee’s 1995 adaptation of Sense and Sensibility is of Kate Winslet’s character, Marianne, pulling her sister up alusciously green hillside just before the skies open in a downpour. In her first book, Jane Austen on Nature: The Novels as Pastoral Literature, Dr. Mary Jane Curry’s interesting argument is that Austen incorporated elements of “pastoral” fiction into her novels and that her heroines respond to the natural world around them as they learn about themselves and their burgeoning sexuality. Pastoral literature, which Curry defines as the celebration of [...]
