But I have, I think, a very good excuse. Longtime readers of this blog will recall that last summer I ran a Kickstarter campaign for an Austen-inspired novel, Edgar and Emma (you can scroll down several posts and see the proof, in fact). I was trying to crowd-source enough funds to allow me to set aside several months to sit down and write the thing; alas, I never met my funding goal, and Edgar and Emma got put on the back-burner.
A few months later, however, I started a freelance job, writing and producing segments for a daily documentary TV series; and it went well enough that the assignment stretched from weeks into months, and in Spring of this year they actually offered me a full-time gig. Since I enjoy the work, I figured what the hell; why not? But I gave them a proviso: I'd come on full-time, but only after a four-month hiatus. They were a little perplexed, but I explained: I wanted the summer off to write. A novel, in fact. In structured, hierarchical corporate America, those must be magic words; because they agreed.
And so I finished Edgar and Emma, and will be self-publishing it in the same manner I did the two volumes of Bitch In a Bonnet, which seems to work well for me. You can expect Edgar and Emma to be available as both an ebook and a trade paperback sometime in the next few months—certainly, I hope, before Christmas (in case you're stuck for a fine gift idea for someone you highly esteem). I'll certainly keep you apprised here, so no worries. But in the meantime, here's the cover/catalog copy:
As a teenager, Jane Austen wrote "Edgar and Emma"—a withering satire on sentimental novels running four uproarious pages.
Now Robert Rodi has taken the brief text of this early story and expanded it into a full-length novel in the mature Austen style. Here you'll find all the hallmarks of Austen's immortal masterpieces: a witty heroine, a hesitant hero, a romantic rival, a charismatic cad, several indefatigable talkers, a shattering crisis, shocking secrets revealed, and moments of the highest hilarity.
You'll also find some character types new to the extended Austensphere, including a firebrand preacher, a pair of ardent dog lovers, and an unrepentantly fey Oxford don. It's a brilliantly witty homage to a beloved novelist's oeuvre, by the acclaimed author of Bitch In a Bonnet: Reclaiming Jane Austen from the Stiffs, the Snobs, the Simps and the Saps.Edgar and Emma: A Novel After Jane Austen, by Robert Rodi—coming soon.
And "Adapted Austen," after a long interruption, resumes even before that.
Meantime, thank you for your patience, and for your continued support. I hope to prove worthy of both, and oh, so very, very soon.
