Write with Jane Austen: Masterclasses with the Master Storyteller is an in-depth look at all we can learn about writing from Jane Austen’s novels. Jane Austen is a master at all elements of storytelling, and I had years of delight writing about how we can apply her techniques to our writing, no matter what genre we write.

(Did you know that 200 years before Blake Snyder coined the term “save the cat,” Austen was already recommending that writers do just that? Did you know that Austen takes a cinematic approach to describing setting? Did you know that even within a point of view, Austen did not see it as fixed? There’s so much we can learn from writing from Austen.)

Write with Jane Austen is now available in print and ebook through all major retailers, and if you order now, you should be able to get a copy for yourself or a friend before the holidays. On Amazon US, you can get the paperback and hardcover, or the ebook. It’s also available through Barnes and Noble, Bookshop.org, Kobo, Smashwords, Waterstones (in the UK), various Amazon websites throughout the world, etc. Your indie bookstore or your library should be able to get ahold of a copy if you request it.

I can’t actually send this, but also I wrote a letter to Jane Austen for her birthday, in which I attempt to use some of her epistolary approaches to humor and irony, as well as apologize for my literary transgressions.

Dear Jane,

On this, your 250th birthday, I am not ungrateful to you.

For how could I be ungrateful, when you have ignored birthday conventions and instead of opening your own presents, you have gifted me a present–and a glorious one. Six incredible novels, that have spawned endless adaptations that hopefully you would find delightful and joyous, though it’s possible you would find some of them utterly horrifying. (You should probably catch up on 20th-century zombie stories before you indulge in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. If you find it horrifying, it is in the horror genre, so it’s an appropriate response.)

Unfortunately, I have contributed to the madness by not only writing three novels about Mary Bennet but also writing a book about your writing. I know that in your time, you had to receive permission from someone in order to dedicate a work to them. While you dedicated your unpublished teenage works to family members in playful ways, you didn’t dedicate any of your published novels, except for Emma, and  you probably did that a bit begrudgingly. (I would love to hear the full story someday on the time you were invited to the Prince Regent’s library, and then his librarian semi-forced you to dedicate a book to the prince. We’re pretty sure you wrote a letter about your library trip, and we’re also pretty sure Cassandra destroyed it. What evidence of your true thoughts was she trying to hide?)

Excuse the tangent. I lose focus, in part because I fear your disapproval. The news is this: I wrote a book about you for your birthday, and I dedicated it to you. I asked no permission, but I do ask forgiveness. May there be only rare pages in the book where you say, “That is not what I meant. That is not what I meant at all.”

You may take all the compliments to you in the book. Just know that more compliments are owed than I could manage to express in a few hundred pages.

Best regards, and any happiness that can be had on your 250th birthday.

Yours affectionally,
Katherine Cowley

P.S. Please do not skewer me too harshly in your letters to Cassandra.

I would like to say that writing a book and even a letter is not too shabby of a celebration for my favorite author.

Wishing you all the best, as you celebrate Austen, birthdays, and/or holidays.