from LW150 blog: How many of you longed to be part of the cool crowd? "Meg goes to Vanity Fair"
Chapter IX. Meg Goes to Vanity Fair
Little Women Legacy: Alcott in the Big Apple with Lorraine Tosiello, Featured Author
From Pink Umbrella Books: interview with contributor Lorraine Tosiello; her essay is called “Piccole Donne” (Little Women in Italian). If you love Little Women, Louisa, the Beatles, Italian families and sisters, you will love this wonderful essay.
In this blog post series, weāll feature contributing authors from our new anthology,Ā Alcottās Imaginary Heroes: The Little Women Legacy. Today weāll catch up with Lorraine Tosiello, physician, writer, and lifelong Little Women aficionado.
Contributor Lorraine Tosiello reads Little Women under the watchful eye of her āneighbor,ā the Empire State Building.
What is your favorite scene from Little Women?
For me, thereās no scene in the book that comes anywhere near the betrothal scene āunder the umbrellaā between Jo and Professor Bhaer.Ā It is wise and sentimental, humorous and poignant, ridiculous and powerful all at once. Jo rushes downtown to find Friedrich, she finds him and he says he is leaving town, she stifles her emotions, he gets confused, they shop for everyone else but themselves, and she blubbers, āYou are going away!ā And then come my two favorite images in the whole book: Friedrich says that heā¦
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Little Women Legacy: Letters from Lake Superior with Deborah Davis Schlacks, Featured Author
From Pink Umbrella for Alcott’s Imaginary Heroes: interview with contributor Deborah Davis Schlacks – her essay, “Pilgrim’s Regress” is powerful about finding the courage to speak up, and how the ability to write can send the message. She of course, cites Louisa as her inspiration.
In this blog post series, weāll feature contributing authors from our new anthology,Ā Alcottās Imaginary Heroes: The Little Women Legacy. Today weāll catch up with Deborah Davis Schlacks, recently retired Professor Emerita of English at the University of Wisconsin-Superior.
Contributor Deborah Davis SchlacksĀ reading herĀ Companion Library edition of Little Women at Fairlawn Mansion in Superior, Wisconsin.
What is your favorite scene fromĀ Little Women?
My favorite is the scene where it is revealed that Jo has cut off her hair and sold it to finance her motherās trip to tend to her ailing father.Ā Joās willingness to sacrifice āher one beautyā to the sake of someone she loved was the first thing that impressed me about it way back when I first read Little Women.Ā And it is also so important that in giving up her long hair, she is making a decision not to let physical beautyāwhich isā¦
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Chapter VIII. Jo Meets Apollyon
From the LW150 blog by Kathryn Graham: This is probably one of the most memorable chapters in Little Women. I think of my fierce temper as my “Beast;” a part of my creative temperament that must be controlled yet channeled. I wonder if Louisa thought that way too?
By Kathryn V. Graham
Now itās Joās turnāafter individuated attention paid to Beth and Amy in chapters 6 and 7, where the former finds the Palace Beautiful and the latter suffers her Valley of Humiliation, and before Megās Chapter 9 trial at Vanity Fair. These four clustered titles offer strong allusions to Bunyanās PilgrimāsProgress, but Joās encounter with Apollyon is the knottiest of the references. Even a reader unversed in Bunyan would have no trouble grasping the other three concepts. But who (or what) is Apollyon, and what does this encounter mean for Jo?
Jo has experienced the devastating loss of the sole copy of her hand-written collection of fairy tales, āthe loving work of several years,ā a project she hoped to share with her father and see in print. Amy has burned Joās manuscript in a fit of pique after being excluded from an excursion to theā¦
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Little Women Legacy: Sounding Off From Puget Sound with K.R. Karr, Featured Author
Meet another author from “Alcott’s Imaginary Heroes: The Little Women Legacy” – K.R. Karr, West Coast writer and academic – loved her essay on Goethe, her grandmother Oma, and the suitability of Professor Bhaer for Jo.
In this blog post series, weāll feature contributing authors from our new anthology,Ā Alcottās Imaginary Heroes: The Little Women Legacy. Today weāll catch up with K.R. Karr, West Coast writer and academic.
Contributor K.R. KarrĀ on Puget Sound with the Washington State Ferry in the background. Photo credit: Kristina Berger.
What is your favorite scene fromĀ Little Women?
My favorite scene from Little Women is when Jo comes home with her hair cut, having sold it to pay for Marmeeās train ticket after Mr. March is wounded in battle. This scene really demonstrates to me Joās inner qualities, as well as her love for her family.
Who are some of your other āimaginary heroesā from literature?
I love this phrase āimaginary heroesā and some of mine include Emily of Deep Valley, Jane Eyre, Cassandra Mortmain of I Capture the Castle, Renee in Coletteās The Vagabond, Lucy Honeychurchā¦
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Chapter VII. Amy’s Valley of Humiliation
Now this is a new take on “Amy’s Valley of Humiliation”!
By Alicia Mischa Renfroe
I became an Alcott āscholarā at age six when I found an old copy of Louisa Alcott: Girl of Old Boston by Jean Brown Wagoner in a box of books that my grandfather had rescued from a one-room school slated for demolition. I read it so many times that my concerned mother (unaware that I had found my career) eventually hid it and substituted Little Women. Part of the Childhoods of Famous Americans series, this biography reveals how little Louisa learns to be a āgood girl.ā Drawing on a memorable anecdote from Alcottās life, Wagoner describes three-year-old Louisaās birthday party where she must forgo her own piece of cake for another child, and such moments appear throughout Little Women as well as Alcottās other work.
One of four consecutive chapters drawing on Bunyanās Pilgrimās Progress, āAmyās Valley of Humiliationā focuses on the youngest Marchātheā¦
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Little Women Legacy: Getting Bookish with Susan Bailey, Featured Author
Look who got featured on Pink Umbrella Books for “Alcott’s Imaginary Heroes: The Little Women Legacy”! Thank you Pink Umbrella Books for the honor and privilege of being featured in your new book.
In this blog post series, weāll feature contributing authors from our new anthology, Alcottās Imaginary Heroes: The Little Women Legacy. Today weāll catch up with Susan Bailey, author, Louisa May Alcott devotee, and proud New Englander!
Contributor Susan Bailey cozies up with The Annotated Little Women in Massachusetts.
What is your favorite scene fromĀ Little Women?
My favorite scene is when Beth runs over to thank Mr. Laurence, impulsively puts her arms around his neck and kisses him, and ends up sitting in his lap. I thought that took a lot of guts to do that! I am a typical Yankee (āfrozen chosenā as they call us in New England) ā quite reserved, especially when it comes to showing physical affection, and I know I would have been far too self-conscious to do what Beth did. She totally forgot herself in the spirit of love and gratitude towardsā¦
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The Little Women Movie: A Modern Retelling – Interview with scriptwriters Clare Niederpruem (director) and Kristi Shimek
I am happy to present this interview with Clare Niederpruem, director and writer, and Kristi Shimek, writerĀ for Little Women (a modern retelling) starring Lea Thompson. The movie premieres on September 28, 2018. SPOILER ALERT: Some of these questions may give away parts of this movie. 1. Why did you choose to make the present …
Chapter VI. Beth Finds the Palace Beautiful
In my opinion, a truly new reflection on Beth and the loveliest I have ever read. Thank you Sandra Burr!
By Sandra Burr
As a ten-year-old, I didnāt know what to make of Beth. She never seemed solid, unlike her sisters. Meg was worldly because she was sixteen and seemed closest to my high-school babysitters and their mysterious algebra homework. Jo was lively and talkative and always up to something, and Amy was snooty and generally repulsive. Those three sisters made sense. Beth didnātāprobably because I couldnāt grasp who she was.
Iāve learned a thing or two since I was ten, and Beth, while still elusive, presents a mystery today far more fascinating than algebra! What animates her beyond gentle timidity and maternal leanings? Ā I decided to use Chapter 6, āBeth Finds the Palace Beautiful,ā to delve into this question, hoping to find something real about Beth as she finds something real in and through the Palace Beautiful next door.
This chapter focuses on Bethās musicality, which strikes meā¦
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Chapter V. Being Neighborly
A lovely post about Jo’s first meetup with Laurie, and reminder to us all to be good neighbors.
By Sarah Wadsworth
Looking through the clear plastic dust jacket of my childhood copy of Little Women is like peering through a window: behind the transparent āpane,ā Marmee plays the piano while the girls joyously sing. Inside, a bookplate signed in my neatest thirteen-year-old hand takes me from the Marchesā parlor to my own family home. I turn the page and an inscriptionāāDecember 1976 / Merry Christmas Sarahāācalls to mind the kindness of the giver to a book-loving girl growing up, like Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy, in a home defined by a fatherās absence as well as a motherās presence.
In āBeing Neighborly,ā kindness is key. The adjective ākindā appears four times, ākindlyā three times, and ākinderā once. Kindness is made manifest in acts of thoughtful generosity, each one begetting reciprocal acts in kind. Eager to make friends, Jo arrives at the Laurence house bearing three kittens from Bethā¦
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Louisa May Alcott is My Passion 