About us
Please note that the organizers of this book club have recently received messages from several authors who were contacted by an imposter posing as a representative of our group: someone writing from the email address "sarah.jane.austine.book.club.nyc@gmail.com". This is not us! It is spam, apparently AI-generated, and we are dismayed to find ourselves its target. Indie sci-fi writers, we love you! But our area of focus continues to be Jane Austen.
Upcoming events
3
- $4.00
Part 3 of Emma: Four-Session Online Study Group in June and July
·OnlineOnline"It was badly done, indeed!"
Join us on four Tuesday evenings in June and July for a deep-dive into Jane Austen's most innovative novel.
About Emma
How does it feel to be one of the beautiful people? Pretty, witty, and well-to-do, Emma Woodhouse is the queen bee of her little country village and the apple of her doting father's eye. Thanks to the technique known as free indirect discourse — which Jane Austen more-or-less invented over the course of her career — readers are invited to step into the protagonist's point of view and share her perceptions in a manner that was unprecedented in the English-language literary tradition. Emma is a psychologically astute and formally experimental comedy of manners that gets better with every rereading.
About This Series
Are you ready for a leisurely, in-depth exploration of this great book, its themes, and its historical context? Then our study group is for you! Whether it's your first time reading Emma or your fiftieth, we look forward to hearing what you think and feel about it.
Schedule of Gatherings
Tuesday, June 30, 2026 at 7:00 PM Eastern US time:
Discussion of Volume 1 of Emma (chapters 1 through 18)Tuesday, July 7, 2026 at 7:00 PM Eastern US time:
Discussion of Volume 2 of Emma (chapters 19 through 36)Tuesday, July 14, 2026 at 7:00 PM Eastern US time:
Discussion of Volume 3 of Emma (chapters 37 through 55)Tuesday, July 21, 2026 at 7:00 PM Eastern US time:
Wrap-up of Emma and discussion of supplemental reading materials TBAMeet Your Facilitator
Sarah Rose Kearns is a playwright, performer, and lifelong Austen enthusiast. Her stage adaptation of Persuasion has appeared off-Broadway and at Chesapeake Shakespeare Company in Baltimore. Her one-act play Manydown, which imagines one important night in the lives of Jane Austen and her sister Cassandra, has been performed more than a dozen times in six US states, as well as in the UK and New Zealand — and was recently adapted as a short film by Prerna Ramachandra. Rose's third and latest play The Austens, a full-length dramatic comedy about the beloved novelist and her family, has had staged readings in New York City, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and at Jane Austen’s brother’s house in Chawton, the English village where the play is set. In addition to her creative work, Rose is passionate about the work of building strong communities through art. Since its inception in 2020, she has served as a member of the Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA) committee for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion; and, since 2023, as co-Regional Coordinator for the JASNA New York Metropolitan Region. She is also the founding artistic director of The Holy Theatre, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit arts organization in New York City, with a mission to make plays and other gatherings that leave people feeling nourished, connected, and more able to be brave.About the Registration Fee
Your payment of $4 per session for each of the five sessions in this series will help the organizers cover monthly Meetup.com platform fees. Any additional proceeds will support The Imaginists, the educational programming wing of The Holy Theatre, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit arts organization. If the fee is a barrier for you, please contact the organizers and we'll work something out!5 attendees - $4.00
Part 4 of Emma: Four-Session Online Study Group in June and July
·OnlineOnline"It was badly done, indeed!"
Join us on four Tuesday evenings in June and July for a deep-dive into Jane Austen's most innovative novel.
About Emma
How does it feel to be one of the beautiful people? Pretty, witty, and well-to-do, Emma Woodhouse is the queen bee of her little country village and the apple of her doting father's eye. Thanks to the technique known as free indirect discourse — which Jane Austen more-or-less invented over the course of her career — readers are invited to step into the protagonist's point of view and share her perceptions in a manner that was unprecedented in the English-language literary tradition. Emma is a psychologically astute and formally experimental comedy of manners that gets better with every rereading.
About This Series
Are you ready for a leisurely, in-depth exploration of this great book, its themes, and its historical context? Then our study group is for you! Whether it's your first time reading Emma or your fiftieth, we look forward to hearing what you think and feel about it.
Schedule of Gatherings
Tuesday, June 30, 2026 at 7:00 PM Eastern US time:
Discussion of Volume 1 of Emma (chapters 1 through 18)Tuesday, July 7, 2026 at 7:00 PM Eastern US time:
Discussion of Volume 2 of Emma (chapters 19 through 36)Tuesday, July 14, 2026 at 7:00 PM Eastern US time:
Discussion of Volume 3 of Emma (chapters 37 through 55)Tuesday, July 21, 2026 at 7:00 PM Eastern US time:
Wrap-up of Emma and discussion of supplemental reading materials TBAMeet Your Facilitator
Sarah Rose Kearns is a playwright, performer, and lifelong Austen enthusiast. Her stage adaptation of Persuasion has appeared off-Broadway and at Chesapeake Shakespeare Company in Baltimore. Her one-act play Manydown, which imagines one important night in the lives of Jane Austen and her sister Cassandra, has been performed more than a dozen times in six US states, as well as in the UK and New Zealand — and was recently adapted as a short film by Prerna Ramachandra. Rose's third and latest play The Austens, a full-length dramatic comedy about the beloved novelist and her family, has had staged readings in New York City, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and at Jane Austen’s brother’s house in Chawton, the English village where the play is set. In addition to her creative work, Rose is passionate about the work of building strong communities through art. Since its inception in 2020, she has served as a member of the Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA) committee for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion; and, since 2023, as co-Regional Coordinator for the JASNA New York Metropolitan Region. She is also the founding artistic director of The Holy Theatre, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit arts organization in New York City, with a mission to make plays and other gatherings that leave people feeling nourished, connected, and more able to be brave.About the Registration Fee
Your payment of $4 per session for each of the five sessions in this series will help the organizers cover monthly Meetup.com platform fees. Any additional proceeds will support The Imaginists, the educational programming wing of The Holy Theatre, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit arts organization. If the fee is a barrier for you, please contact the organizers and we'll work something out!2 attendees 
Sanditon: A Discussion of Jane Austen's Unfinished Novel
·OnlineOnline"Every neighbourhood should have a great lady."
Join us on Tuesday, July 28th for a discussion of Jane Austen's tantalizing final fragment.
About "Sanditon"
Though Persuasion is often thought of as her swan song, Jane Austen started work on a very different tale as she lay dying in the summer of 1817: "Sanditon" is a cutting satire about hypochondriacs and commercial real-estate developers. Though brief, it's a tantalizing fragment — foregrounding the cultural changes that she witnessed at the close of the long war with Napoleon, and featuring the only named character in her oeuvre who is explicitly described as a person of color. Here's the link to read "Sanditon" for free online. And here's the link to Anthony Lane's assessment of "Sanditon", published in The New Yorker on the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen's death in 2017.About This Series
Are you ready for a leisurely, in-depth exploration of this great book, its themes, and its historical context? Then our study group is for you! Whether it's your first time reading "Sanditon" or your fiftieth, we look forward to hearing what you think and feel about it.Meet Your Facilitator
Sarah Rose Kearns is a playwright, performer, and lifelong Austen enthusiast. Her stage adaptation of Persuasion has appeared off-Broadway and at Chesapeake Shakespeare Company in Baltimore. Her one-act play Manydown, which imagines one important night in the lives of Jane Austen and her sister Cassandra, has been performed more than a dozen times in six US states, as well as in the UK and New Zealand — and was recently adapted as a short film by Prerna Ramachandra. Rose's third and latest play The Austens, a full-length dramatic comedy about the beloved novelist and her family, has had staged readings in New York City, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and at Jane Austen’s brother’s house in Chawton, the English village where the play is set. In addition to her creative work, Rose is passionate about the work of building strong communities through art. Since its inception in 2020, she has served as a member of the Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA) committee for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion; and, since 2023, as co-Regional Coordinator for the JASNA New York Metropolitan Region. She is also the founding artistic director of The Holy Theatre, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit arts organization in New York City, with a mission to make plays and other gatherings that leave people feeling nourished, connected, and more able to be brave.3 attendees
Past events
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