Sophie Gee

That sounds so rich.

I think the way you found our podcast was from listening to the Virginia Woolf episodes.

Those are great answers.

Really, really interesting to think about it as the way great writers engage with the form of the novel as this extremely complex, very multi-layered, capacious way of putting a story together and also has this kind of deep history.

And that so comes across in all the writing, doesn't it?

I think you're right about wolf and form, even if it wasn't conscious of

those jumping off points from the object, from the trigger memory and then the sort of slide into a new piece of narrative.

I love that.

Autumn, the book's going to be amazing.

So thank you very much for coming on the show.

Our listeners are going to learn more about you in the show notes and we'll put some of those essays in as well and absolutely cannot wait for the book when it comes out.

Today's bonus episode is a behind-the-scenes look at the year of total Jane Austen mania that we've just seen erupt all over the world in celebration of Austen's 250th birthday, which was on the 16th of December, 2025.

And I'm talking to Professor Demini Losa.

Dabney's one of the world's foremost Austen scholars.

She's written a great deal about Jane Austen and Austen's contemporaries across her whole career.

She's Regents Professor at Arizona State University, and recently she's the author of the truly runaway success, Wild for Austen, A Rebellious, Subversive, and Untamed Jane, which, as the title suggests, is about Jane Austen's lesser-known wild side.

Devaney's book came out to celebrate Austen's birthday and she toured 18 cities in four countries during 2025.

So she got to see the madness, the magic, the bonnets and the balls of the Janeites in full party mode.

Jonty and I first met Devaney when we did a Jane Austen extravaganza at the Canberra Writers Festival in 2025.

And I spoke to her again at a sold out event in Sydney packed with more Jane Austen enthusiasts.