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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, we’ll feature contributing authors from our new anthology, Alcott’s Imaginary Heroes: The Little Women Legacy. Today we’ll catch up with Deborah Davis Schlacks, recently retired Professor Emerita of English at the University of Wisconsin-Superior.

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Contributor Deborah Davis Schlacks reading her Companion Library edition of Little Women at Fairlawn Mansion in Superior, Wisconsin.

What is your favorite scene from Little Women?

My favorite is the scene where it is revealed that Jo has cut off her hair and sold it to finance her mother’s trip to tend to her ailing father.  Jo’s willingness to sacrifice “her one beauty” to the sake of someone she loved was the first thing that impressed me about it way back when I first read Little Women.  And it is also so important that in giving up her long hair, she is making a decision not to let physical beauty—which is…

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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?

Little Women 150

By Kathryn V. Graham

Now it’s Jo’s turn–after 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 Meg’s Chapter 9 trial at Vanity Fair. These four clustered titles offer strong allusions to Bunyan’s Pilgrim’sProgress, but Jo’s 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, “the loving work of several years,” a project she hoped to share with her father and see in print. Amy has burned Jo’s manuscript in a fit of pique after being excluded from an excursion to the…

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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, we’ll feature contributing authors from our new anthology, Alcott’s Imaginary Heroes: The Little Women Legacy. Today we’ll catch up with K.R. Karr, West Coast writer and academic.

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Contributor K.R. Karr on Puget Sound with the Washington State Ferry in the background. Photo credit: Kristina Berger.

What is your favorite scene from Little Women?

My favorite scene from Little Women is when Jo comes home with her hair cut, having sold it to pay for Marmee’s train ticket after Mr. March is wounded in battle. This scene really demonstrates to me Jo’s inner qualities, as well as her love for her family.

Who are some of your other “imaginary heroes” from literature?

I love this phrase “imaginary heroes” and some of mine include Emily of Deep Valley, Jane Eyre, Cassandra Mortmain of I Capture the Castle, Renee in Colette’s The Vagabond, Lucy Honeychurch…

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Chapter VII. Amy’s Valley of Humiliation

Now this is a new take on “Amy’s Valley of Humiliation”!

Little Women 150

By Alicia Mischa Renfroe

I became an Alcott “scholar” 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 “good girl.” Drawing on a memorable anecdote from Alcott’s life, Wagoner describes three-year-old Louisa’s birthday party where she must forgo her own piece of cake for another child, and such moments appear throughout Little Women as well as Alcott’s other work.

One of four consecutive chapters drawing on Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, “Amy’s Valley of Humiliation” focuses on the youngest March—the…

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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, we’ll feature contributing authors from our new anthology, Alcott’s Imaginary Heroes: The Little Women Legacy. Today we’ll catch up with Susan Bailey, author, Louisa May Alcott devotee, and proud New Englander!

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Contributor Susan Bailey cozies up with The Annotated Little Women in Massachusetts.

What is your favorite scene from 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 (“frozen chosen” as they call us in New England) – 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 towards…

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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, writer  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 …

Continue reading "The Little Women Movie: A Modern Retelling – Interview with scriptwriters Clare Niederpruem (director) and Kristi Shimek"

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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!

Little Women 150

By Sandra Burr

As a ten-year-old, I didn’t 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 didn’t—probably because I couldn’t grasp who she was.

I’ve 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?  I decided to use Chapter 6, “Beth Finds the Palace Beautiful,” 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 Beth’s musicality, which strikes me…

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