Aspiring Young Women Writers

Revisiting the 1979 film My Brilliant Career, based on the 1901 book by Australian writer Miles Franklin, about the author's path to publishing her first novel, got me to thinking about other aspiring young women writers of the 19th and early 20th century. I have fond memories and a strong identification with some of those authors, the characters that populate their novels and stories, and appear, perhaps, in subsequent film adaptations.

The first author that comes to mind in this category is Louisa May Alcott, author of Little Women and other classics. Just in case you have forgotten (or somehow never read it), the leading character in Little Women is Jo March (based on Alcott herself), and the setting is Massachusetts, during the period of the Civil War. The feisty Jo longs to publish a novel, reads everything she can get her hands on, and behaves somewhat unconventionally for a young woman of her time. How many girls and young women have aspired to a literary life because of Alcott's Jo, even though she ultimately chooses a happy family life over a writing career? I kept rooting for Jo to also get that book written and published, even though she married the delightful Professor Bhaer, had a family and ran a school. But that was the nineteenth century, after all, and we have seen some changes since then!