Jane Austen In Tucson

Jane Austen, the beloved author who was born in England the year that the American Revolution started, would be amazed to know that in 2026, 250 years after the Declaration of Independence was signed, her fans would be celebrating her novels in a place she’d never heard of: Tucson, Arizona.

Mind you, the Founders had never heard of Tucson either. In 1775, it was named for a new Spanish garrison, the Presidio San Agustin del Tucson. The local people, the Tohono O’odham, farmed the area using catchment systems to preserve floodwater and seasonal rains, skirmishing sometimes with Apache warriors. They created an innovative, resourceful culture that thrived in an environment that Europeans found and still find challenging.

Stretching the analogy a little, the organizers of the 2026 Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA)’s annual general meeting noted that Bath, England, where Austen’s novels Northanger Abbey and Persuasion were set, in common with Tucson, has an ancient culture based on water-seeking. Bath is a town built on the ruins of its Roman baths.

Last Saturday, armed with printouts of the extensive speaker program, workshops, and breakout sessions, and the similarly extensive list of side trips to local museums, historic monuments, gardens, and restaurants, and trying to remember the instructions in the pre-registration video, I worked my way through the process. Warned that the AGM sells out quickly, I was over the moon to learn that my registration had been accepted.

I am delighted that JASNA chose my home state as the location for its 2026 conference. No, you won’t see me cavorting at the “Masked Regency Ball”. (Though I might buy a dress. Just in case.) But I will be there in Tucson, happy to mingle and meet, listen and learn, read and record, and to wonder what Jane Austen, that witty, insightful, satirical writer, would have thought about her fandom two and a half centuries on.