Jane Austen fans who weren’t too enamoured with the recent news that their favourite author was getting another monster mash-up treatment, may be delighted to hear about a more refined literary offering – Dancing with Mr. Darcy, which is coming from Welsh press Honno in October.
Dancing with Mr. Darcy is an anthology of twenty Austen-inspired stories, all of which were selected from the entrants of the recent ‘Jane Austen Short Story Award 2009′, a competition which marks the celebration of the bicentenary of Austen’s arrival in Chawton (the location where Austen was most productive during her literary life).
With entries in the competition judged by author Sarah Waters, the stories included in Dancing with Mr. Darcy are headed by the overall winner of the competition, Victoria Owens, with her story Jane Austen over the Styx. Of the winning entry Sarah Waters had this to say:
The winning entry is a really original take on the Austen theme: a story about the author going to Hades to be judged by some of the more unpleasant characters she created in her novels. I thought this was very accomplished and stylish.
Along with Victoria’s winning entry (for which she also received a cheque for £1000), Honno’s Austen anthology will also include the stories from the two runners-up plus seventeen other finalists.
Further details and ordering information can be found on the Honno website, and Chawton House Library have put up a nice picture set of the award event on Flickr.
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[...] Dancing with Mr. Darcy, an anthology of stories submitted for the Chawton Library writing contest, will be published in October. The winning story sounds pretty interesting: The winning entry is a really original take on the Austen theme: a story about the author going to Hades to be judged by some of the more unpleasant characters she created in her novels. I thought this was very accomplished and stylish. [...]