Welcome

Whether you have just discovered Jane Austen or are a lifelong aficionado, you are welcome at the Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA) and our local region of the society, JASNA Southwest.

Our region is the largest and one of the oldest in the national society. We host four regional meetings annually that feature a wide range of speakers and presentations, offer numerous local reading and game groups, sponsor a Young Filmmakers Contest and maintain a comprehensive guide to Austen Adaptations.

Learn more about the benefits of joining JASNA and JASNA Southwest on our membership page.

We hope you enjoy exploring our site and we hope to see you soon!

Left: Glamified version of the iconic portrait of Austen by her sister, Cassandra, circa 1810

Austen’s original writing desk, which was returned to the Jane Austen’s House in Chawton in 1957

Chawton Cottage, England 

 *~* Upcoming Free Zoom Events *~*

All of our online Zoom events are open to JASNA members as well as non-members. Invite your friends!

(See our in-person events in next section)

   July 16, 2022

   Sister Novelists: The Trailblazing Porter Sisters Who Paved the Way for Austen and the Brontes

   Zoom Presentation by Austen scholar Devoney Looser, author of The Making of Jane Austen

   11:00 AM – 12:30 PM Pacific

 Our special guest will be Devoney Looser, Regents Professor of English at Arizona State University, will give us a preview of her new book on the Porter sisters, which will be released on Sept. 6.

From the publisher (Bloomsbury USA):

Jane and Anna Maria Porter -exact contemporaries of Jane Austen- were brilliant, attractive, self-made single women of polite reputation who between them published 26 books and achieved global fame. They socialized among the rich and famous, tried to hide their family’s considerable debt, and fell dramatically in and out of love. Their moving letters to each other confess every detail. Because the celebrity sisters expected their renown to live on, they preserved their papers, and the secrets they contained, for any biographers to come.

But history hasn’t been kind to the Porters. Their literary reputation gradually fell away, their letters languished, and no biographer materialized for a century and a half. Now, Professor Devoney Looser, a Guggenheim fellow in English Literature, sets out to re-introduce the world to the authors who cleared the way for Austen, Mary Shelley, and the Brontë sisters.

Capturing the Porter sisters’ incredible rise, from when Anna Maria published her first book at age 14 in 1793, through to Jane’s fall from the pinnacle of fame in the Victorian era, and then to the auctioning off for a pittance of the family’s massive archive, Sister Novelists is a groundbreaking and enthralling biography of two pioneering geniuses in historical fiction.

Devoney Looser, Regents Professor of English at Arizona State University, will give us a preview of her new book on the Porter sisters, which will be released on Sept. 6. Devoney has authored or edited nine books on literature by women. Her book The Making of Jane Austen was named a Publishers Weekly Best Summer Book (nonfiction). Her essays have appeared in The New York Times, the Washington Post, The Atlantic, Salon and Slate. She’s also played roller derby as Stone Cold Jane Austen and served as plenary speaker at multiple JASNA Annual General Meetings. Devoney earned her PhD in English, with certification in women’s studies, from SUNY Stony Brook, N.Y., and graduated summa cum laude from Augsburg College in Minneapolis with an English Honors BA.

 REGISTER NOW FOR THIS ZOOM PRESENTATION

 August 20, 2022
Kamila Knows Best, a Bollywood-style retelling of Emma set in Toronto’s South Asian Community
Zoom Presentation by author Farah Heron
11:00 AM – 12:30 PM Pacific

November 12, 2022
History and Restoration of the Lost Art of Dhaka Muslin
Zoom Presentation by Mr. Saiful Islam, who leads a project to resurrect the precious fabric imported from
what was then Bengal (and now Bangladesh) and popularized in the late 18th century
11:00 AM-12:30 PM Pacific

January 28, 2023

College Students Take On Jane Austen
Zoom Presentation by students of Dr. Jason Solinger, 18th Century scholar, University of Mississippi
11:00 AM-12:30 PM Pacific

March 4, 2023
Coverture and Marriage Law in Early America
Zoom Presentation by Dr. Catherine Allgor, President, Massachusetts Historical Society
11:00 AM-12:30 PM Pacific

2022 In-person Meetings, continued

September 10, 2022
Family Law and Mansfield Park presented by Superior Court Judge Stephanie Thornton-Harris
Jane Austen and The Movies Today, an insider’s view of Hollywood and an ambitious Jane Austen film
project presented by Film Producer and JASNA Southwest Member Alex Siskin
In-Person Half-Day Event: Location TBD

December 3, 2022

Jane Austen and the Musical Arts
In-Person Full-Day Event concluding with a dance lesson: The Grand Event Center, Long Beach
Musical Performance by Flutist Ann Erwin and Pianist Edie Orloff; History of Dance in Jane Austen’s Time
presented by Cara King; English Country Dancing led by Cara King

February 11, 2023
Regency Noir: Romance, Race and the Rise of ‘The Woman of Colour’. Regency Noir is examined
within the recent outgrowth of scholarship on the anonymous novel ‘The Woman of Colour’ (1808) and
considers how scholars may learn from reimagined narratives foregrounding Black characters.
Presented by Dr. Leigh-Michil George, Lecturer, UCLA English Department
In-Person Half-Day Event: Location TBD

May 6, 2023

Miss Austen Goes to Washington
In-Person Full-Day Event concluding with optional tour: Mission Inn Hotel and Spa, Riverside
Featured speakers: Congressman Mark Takano (D-Riverside) who launched a Jane Austen reading group
on Capitol Hill; Austen scholar Sheryl Craig, author of Jane Austen and the State of the Nation; and
acclaimed author and Riverside native, Susan Straight

Reading, Film and Game Groups

For the upcoming schedule for each of our reading, film and game groups, visit the groups page.

Join other Jane Austen fans from around Southern California by attending one of our regional meetings.

Email jasnasw or visit our contact page to direct your query on a specific topic or to a board member. We look forward to hearing from you.