Behind the Scenes:
The Novel Life Of Jane Austen: A Graphic Biography 
by Janine Barchas, illustrated by Isabelle Greenwood
Speaker: Janine Barchas
by Vonnie Alto, Regional Coordinator
Part 3.

Our region gathered with our guest, Janeite and multi-published author and professor, Janine Barchas, on June 15th for a special anniversary event in celebration of Jane Austen's 250th birthday.

Janine gave a a behind the scenes presentation of her new book, The Novel Life of Jane Austen: A Graphic Biography, illustrated by Isabelle Greenwood.

Our new regional member, Cindy Filer, hosted us at her beautiful home in NE Portland.

It was an intricately timed meeting as our guest and her friend arrived directly from the airport. Our Regional Coordinator, Vonnie Alto greeted Janine and her friend when they arrived. The author thoughtfully brought hostess gifts for our hostess Cindy and our RC, Vonnie for all the work they did to make this event happen amid a Father's Day weekend. The dish towels are a fun take on Austen with "Greetings from Austin Texas." What a special souvenir in remembrance of our speaker, Janine Barchas from the University of Texas at Austin! 

Here our regional members converse with Janine Barchas and her friend and dine on all sorts of culinary delights while sipping cooling refreshments during Portland's 74 degree temperature.

After mingling inside, we adjourned onto Cindy's beautiful white octagon deck. There, Janine gave her laptop presentation titled, "Behind the Scenes: The Novel Life of Jane Austen: A Graphic Biography."  After a fascinating Q&A and more mingling, Janine and her friend were off and sped away.

Thank you to Janine Barchas for visiting our region and giving such an intriguing and insightful presentation on Jane Austen! We all are eager to purchase your book: The Novel Life of Jane Austen: A Graphic Biography.   

Behind the Scenes:
The Novel Life Of Jane Austen: A Graphic Biography 
by Janine Barchas, illustrated by Isabelle Greenwood
Speaker: Janine Barchas
by Vonnie Alto, Regional Coordinator
Part 2.

Here, our region prepares for our Jane and Janine June Meeting. On June 15th (Father's Day) we welcomed multi-published author and Janeite, Janine Barchas, for a special anniversary event in celebration of Jane Austen's 250th birthday. Janine gave a engrossing presentation of her new book, The Novel Life of Jane Austen: A Graphic Biography, illustrated by Isabelle Greenwood.

Our new regional member, Cindy Filer, hosted us at her beautiful home in NE Portland where we gathered on her spacious white octagon deck with an arboretum forest in the background to hear and see Janine's unique presentation. 

Here, Cindy Filer and Vonnie Alto (Regional Coordinator) prepare for this special event. 

Behind the Scenes:
The Novel Life Of Jane Austen: A Graphic Biography 
by Janine Barchas, illustrated by Isabelle Greenwood
Speaker: Janine Barchas
by Vonnie Alto, Regional Coordinator
Part 1.

Our region welcomed multi-published author and Janeite, Janine Barchas, on June 15th for a special anniversary event in celebration of Jane Austen's 250th birthday.

Our new regional member, Cindy Filer, hosted us at her beautiful home in NE Portland where we gathered on her spacious white octagon deck with an arboretum forest in the background to hear Janine speak. 

Janine is the author of The Lost Books of Jane Austen. Janine gave a a behind the scenes presentation of her new book, The Novel Life of Jane Austen: A Graphic Biography, illustrated by Isabelle Greenwood.

Janine accompanied her presentation with a handout. See attached file.

We learned that graphic novels are a hot new genre flooding libraries and bookstores. The Novel Life of Jane Austen: A Graphic Biography is a novel about a female author (Jane Austen) written by a female scholar (Janine)

We got a first hand behind the scenes look at the The Novel Life of Jane Austen: A Graphic Biography. This is Janine's second scholarly book since writing The Lost Books of Jane Austen.

The Novel Life of Jane Austen is a dual creation with Janine providing the text and research (the how, what, and when) and Isabelle the illustrations. It is the first graphic novel written about Jane Austen and her life. It took 3 years for Janine to write the book.

Janine selected 3 phases of Jane Austen's life to document and told Austen's life 3 parts:

• Part 1: Budding Writer 1796-1797 (The promise of Jane Austen in her twenties)
  
• Part 2: Struggling Artist 1801-1809 (The genteel poverty of Jane Austen in her early thirties)
  
• Part 3: Published Author 1811 - 1817 (Jane Austen's final years at Chawton House)   
  

The book celebrates Jane Austen's life while focusing on Austen's relationship with her sister and family. Cleverly, the author uses a matted color palette and portrays Austen wearing a yellow dress in the cartoon panels for the reader to identify her which explodes into a bright reds of maroon, magenta, fuchsia, and pink to show Austen writing or imagining her stories.   

Janine inserted new information from her research about Austen. Everything presented in the graphic novel is based on fact and history with authentic engravings and newsletter images and maps integrated into the artwork. As one member noted, the book becomes a tour guide for readers to reminisce about their travels to England.

Both the author, Janine, and the illustrator, Isabelle, conducted many site visits over the course of a  year to document Jane Austen's travels to such places as Netalee Abbey, Farleligh Castle, the village of Chawton, and the Jane Austen House Museum.

Janine found herself challenged on how to recreate 3 distinct eras in Austen's time. She used Austen's spectacles to denote the 3rd section of the book or Jane's final years at Chawton. Isabelle also added age lines to Austen's face to age her.  

We also discussed the world of Jane Austen and what attracts readers to Jane Austen's writings.  

Based on Janine's classroom experience as a teacher, Janine noted that young people live in a world of too much choice and multiple social media platforms that everything is acceptable.

One of our members, Cynthia Eckersley noted that young people really crave a world that is calm with a right/wrong way to behave as compared to a lack of formality and chaos that exists in today's society. Hence the appeal of Jane Austen to youthful readers.

Cynthia insightfully noted that during the 18th-19th century of Jane Austen, women couldn't hold a job or own land; in today's world, there's too much freedom. The pandemic turned the world upside down. As a result, people today are moving towards the past for entertainment and history (such as re-enactments, including the annual Jane Austen Festival in Bath and the Versailles Masked Ball).  

Regional Coordinator, Vonnie Alto asked, "Why write a graphic novel?" Janine answered that words and images in a graphic novel work in unison. Janine's previous book, The Lost books of Jane Austen shows that pictures illustrated how Austen became popular--but words together with pictures better reveal Austen's life.

Vonnie asked a follow up question: "Why read a graphic novel?" Janine responded by stating that Austen's fans crave other ways to experience Austen. A graphic novel provides a unique medium to recount Austen.

Graphic novels are also a way of creating a visual dynamic based on research with images. Words and images work together to transport the reader back in time into the era and life of Jane Austen. Janine compared the effect to screenwriting.  The visuals and words come together. It's rich and brings it alive.

Janine noted that Austen pulled from her ordinary life and put it into her novels which the graphic novel explores.

Since the The Novel Life of Jane Austen is a different medium, Janine is waiting to see how readers react to it. She said that a visual sense is needed to appreciate a graphic novel. 

Janine had such a positive experience writing The Novel Life of Jane Austen that she would like to write another one to continue Austen's life story--as none of us wants a good story to end. Janine noted that the movie, Clueless is based almost word for word on Jane Austen's Emma. It opened a door into graphic novels. Janine stepped through that door by writing The Novel Life of Jane Austen: A Graphic Biography.    

Thank you, Janine Barchas, for visiting our region and showing us how your created The Novel Life of Jane Austen: A Graphic Biography.  And thank you to our host, Cindy Filer for hosting our region at her lovely home!

Interviewed by Vonnie Alto, Regional Coordinator

Cindy Filer, our newest member, joined JASNA and our region on April 27, 2025 and a few days later, attended our Spring Tea.
 
Cindy was born in western Pennsylvania and moved to Oregon at the age of 23. She has a B.A. Degree in Accounting from Youngstown State Ohio and worked for 41 years at the Portland post office--performing a variety of jobs including delivering mail, providing customer service at the window, but mostly sorting mail on large machines. 
 
When Cindy first moved to Portland, her first friend belonged to the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) so Cincy joined SCA too and had a lot of fun playing knights, lords, and ladies. Her dear friend also introduced Cindy to contra dance which became a lifelong interest. 
 
In midlife, Cindy discovered vintage waltzing and ballroom dancing at Norse Hall.  Round and round she went, twirling in the elegant ballroom which led to learning smooth ballroom dance as dance became her life. 
 
Then Covid struck and the music stopped. Cindy was now lost without dancing as a pastime. Having never been much of a television watcher, she sought out the library and began reading English and French history--subjects sorely neglected in her college business curriculum. 
 
Cindy had always loved books but now narrowed her focus to Jane Austen and the Regency era. 

Cindy found our region when she started thinking about what she wants to do as she heads towards retirement and realized that she needs friends like Jane Austen. 

A few months ago, she researched Jane Austen on Wikipedia to learn more about Jane. The films adapted from Austen's books are her favorites and she watches them over and over again. As she scrolled down through the entries, she discovered JASNA.  

When she saw our Spring Tea advertised on our website, she thought that it would be a fun and inviting occasion to meet the Janeites. That's when she contacted our region with the most charming subject heading in her email, "Perhaps I want to join." As I read her email, I knew she was a devout Janite.

Cynthia attended our Spring Tea on May 3rd at the Good Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church in Beaverton where Collins Hemingway spoke to our region.  She had a delightful time meeting our Janeites and said they are all so lovely and interesting! She also enjoyed our buffet potluck, particularly the delicious treats. She loved the beautiful centerpiece flowers and the live piano music from the 2005 motion picture of Pride and Prejudice which transported Cindy into Jane Austen's Regency era.

She kindly volunteered to host our upcoming meeting. 

Now that Cindy is in her later midlife, she finds that much of today's world no longer appeals to her.  She savors the gentleness of partner dancing, beautiful music, sensitive films, the feel of quality paper in a book or letter, fine words, lovely fabrics. And, of course, the company of thoughtful, like minded new friends like us Janeites.  
Cindy also loves gardening, horses, cats, and dogs. She hopes to someday knit and would like to do more skiing, kayaking, and horseback riding. She still also enjoys contra dancing and smooth ballroom dance.

In her dreams, Cindy is a cowgirl at heart, and now, also a Janeite! 

By Vonnie Alto, Regional Coordinator

Multi-published Janeite, Janine Barchas will give a presentation to our region on June 15th (Sunday) in celebration of Jane Austen's 250th Birthday!  

Janine is a professor of English who has published several non-fiction books on Jane Austen. Janine is from the Netherlands and lives in the U.S. Since 2002 she has been a Professor of English at the University of Texas at Austin.  

Janine has published the following books: 

• Paper Jane: 250 Years Of Jane Austen  (October 2025)
• The Novel Life of Jane Austen: A Graphic Biography (April 2025)
• A Boyhood Under Nazi Occupation: The Personal Story of Jan Duijvestein (translation, 2020)
• The Lost Books of Jane Austen (2019)
• Matters of Fact in Jane Austen: History, Location, And Celebrity (2013)
• Graphic Design, Print Culture, And the Eighteenth-Century Novel (2008)

Janine was a breakout speaker several times at JASNA AGM's and a plenary speaker twice (2013 and 2019).

She has curated Jane Austen exhibits including the famous Will and Jane Exhibit at the Folger Shakespeare Library for the 2016 AGM in Washington DC and also gave tours.

Janine has also created the online digital project: What Jane Saw <www.whatjanesaw.org> 

Her current online exhibit is titled, The Art of Cassandra at Jane Austen's House <https://janeaustens.house/display/the-art-of-cassandra/>

This Fall her upcoming exhibit is titled Paper Jane at the Grolier Club in NYC (which opens December 4th) to coincide with the October publication of her Paper Jane book. 

Janine's June presentation will focus on her new release: The Novel Life of Jane Austen: A Graphic Biography which is a transatlantic collaboration between Janine in Austen, Textas and the graphic novelist Isabel Greenberg in London. It centers on the relationship between the Austen sisters. One review hailed it as "Truly delightful, charming, and funny." 

Janine will provide a behind the scenes look at the book's creative process and share favorite scenes and moments from the book in celebration of its publication and Jane Austen's 250th Birthday.  

Additionally, Janine will answer questions about her new book and address questions about her other books, including her upcoming Fall release, and her exhibits.  
 
No preparation is necessary!