The Courage to Write

An award-winning series of audio programs and guides on women novelists and poets.

Jane Austen hid pages of her novels under a sewing basket when visitors appeared, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning ignored doctors telling her that she suffered from "fungus of the brain" afflicting women who wrote poetry. Audiocassettes bring to life these and other women writers through readings, dramatizations, scholarly commentary, music, and narration by University of Wisconsin English Professor Emily Auerbach, the creator of the "Courage to Write" series. Some parts of The Courage to Write series also include guides for readers featuring extensive background material on each writer and guides for discussion leaders including techniques for generating a stimulating interchange of ideas about literature.

The Courage to Write is a series of audio programs and written guides that illuminate the colorful lives and powerful works of women writers. An ideal resource for individual booklovers, teachers, and commuters or for libraries, radio stations, schools, retirement centers, and book groups, The Courage to Write already has won four national awards for excellence and has been broadcast on several public radio stations in the United States and Canada.

Click on a unit below to jump to the detailed description of that component, including information on how to order or register:

• The Courage to Write I:Women Novelists of 19th-Century Europe
• The Courage to Write II: Women Novelists of 19th-Century America
• The Courage to Write III: Pioneering American Women Poets
• The Courage to Write IV: Emily Dickinson
• The Courage to Write V: Jane Austen
  
  

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"Your marvelous Jane Austen program struck a chord
with our listeners and they want more!" —Arts Director, California Public Radio Station

More testimonials about the Courage to Write series
About project director Emily Auerbach
Awards for The Courage to Write series

Ordering information:

For more information or to request a printed catalog with order form contact.

Emily Auerbach
21 N Park St. 7th Floor
Madison, WI 53715
Phone 608-262-3733
eauerbach@dcs.wisc.edu.

All programs can also be ordered by calling 608-262-4551.

THE COURAGE TO WRITE I: Women Novelists of 19th-Century Europe

"The inspiring principle which alone gives me courage to write is that of so presenting our human life as to help my readers."
-GEORGE ELIOT

Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, George Sand, Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, and George Eliot were discouraged from using their minds or expressing their opinions. Yet they found the courage to write novels of power and vision. An audio-print resource from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Wisconsin Public Radio brings these six inspiring women and their era to life.*

Audio programs Six half-hour programs capture the excitement of these courageous women novelists and their lives. Listeners hear dramatizations from Pride and Prejudice, Frankenstein, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and other novels, excerpts from letters and diary entries, music, and scholarly commentary by Betsy Draine, Sandra Gilbert, Robert Najem, and Joseph Wiesenfarth.

Set of 3 Double-sided Cassettes $22.50 Jane Austen; Mary Shelley; George Sand; Charlotte Brontë Emily Brontë George Eliot

A Guide for Readers -- Why did the Bronte sisters, George Sand, and George Eliot use male pen names? Why did Jane Austen hide pages of her novels when visitors appeared? Why did 19-year-old Mary Shelley create a horrifying monster? An extensive guide answers these and other questions, providing background materials on each writer and her works.

A Guide for Readers (152 pages; illustrated) $12

Discussion Leader Guide Designed for teachers and community leaders, an expanded edition of A Guide for Readers offers transcripts, discussion questions, and techniques for using audio programs to generate a stimulating interchange of ideas about literature.

Discussion Leader Guide (249 pages; illustrated; $17 includes A Guide for Readers and supplementary material)

Ordering Information: To request a printed catalog with order form contact Emily Auerbach, 21 N Park St., 7th Floor, Madison, WI 53715. Phone 608-262-3733. eauerbach@dcs.wisc.edu. All programs can also be ordered by calling 608-262-4551.

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THE COURAGE TO WRITE II: Women Novelists of 19th-Century America

"How hard it is for one's acquaintances and friends to realize that one's books are to be taken seriously; To succeed, the artist must possess the courageous soul. The brave soul. The soul that dares and defies." -KATE CHOPIN

Harriet Beecher Stowe, Harriet Wilson, Louisa May Alcott, Kate Chopin, Edith Wharton, Gertrude Stein, and Mourning Dove were told that women should be silent. Instead, they changed their world and ours by writing revolutionary novels. This series introduces seven extraordinary American women and their era.

AUDIO PROGRAMS Seven half-hour programs bring to life these American novelists. An additional half-hour overview links their work to six brave European women novelists. Programs include dramatizations from Uncle Tom's Cabin, Little Women, The Awakening, House of Mirth, and other novels, music, and scholarly commentary by Dale Bauer, Sargent Bush, Nellie McKay, Cyrene Pondrom, Annis Pratt, LaVonne Ruoff, and Jeffrey Steele.

Set of 4 Double-sided Cassettes $29.95 Harriet Beecher Stowe; Harriet Wilson / Louisa May Alcott; Kate Chopin Edith Wharton; Gertrude Stein / Mourning Dove; Overview

A GUIDE FOR READERS Why did Abraham Lincoln say Harriet Beecher Stowe started the Civil War? Why did libraries refuse to carry Kate Chopin's The Awakening? Why has almost no one heard of Harriet Wilson and Mourning Dove, America's first black woman and Native American woman to write novels/autobiographies? An extensive guide answers these and other questions.

A Guide for Readers (223 pages; illustrated) $13

DISCUSSION LEADER GUIDE: Designed for teachers and community leaders, an expanded edition of A Guide for Readers offers transcripts, discussion questions, and techniques for using audio programs to generate a stimulating interchange of ideas about literature.

Discussion Leader Guide (363 pages; illustrated; includes A Guide for Readers and supplementary material) $18

Ordering Information: To request a printed catalog with order form contact Emily Auerbach, 21 N Park St., 7th Floor, Madison, WI 53715. Phone 608-262-3733. eauerbach@dcs.wisc.edu. All programs can also be ordered by calling 608-262-4551..

 

THE COURAGE TO WRITE III: Pioneering American Women Poets

"Give me your tired, your poor,/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,/The wretched refuse of your teeming shore."
-EMMA LAZARUS

Anne Bradstreet, Phillis Wheatley, and Emma Lazarus may not be familiar names, but their amazing lives and works boggle our minds and inspire our hearts. Although Massachusetts Bay Colony Governor John Winthrop warned that a woman who read and wrote might go insane, Anne Bradstreet (1612?-1672) became America's first woman poet, composing verses while raising eight children and struggling against illness and hardship in the American wilderness.

Phillis Wheatley (1753?-1784) was kidnapped from Africa at about age seven and brought over on a slave ship to Boston. Overcoming unbelievable odds, she became America's first black woman poet, a "novelty item" celebrated by George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and others for a short time, then allowed to drift into obscurity and death from malnutrition.

 

Obscurity also threatens Emma Lazarus (1849-1887): though all of us know the "Give me your tired, your poor" lines from the Statue of Liberty pedestal, few know why Emma Lazarus wrote these lines or what else this brave 19th-century Jewish-American woman wrote before her early death. Lazarus's poems, essays, and play decry antisemitism, arguing that "until we are all free, none of us are free."

 

AUDIO PROGRAMS Three one-hour programs rescue the lives and works of these pioneering women poets and record 20th-century responses to their words. Hear Leonard Bernstein's setting of a Bradstreet poem, Alice Walker's essay about Phillis Wheatley, and Irving Berlin's setting of Lazarus's "Give me your tired, your poor" lyrics; commentary by Professors Sargent Bush, Nellie McKay, and Diane Lichtenstein and by contemporary black poet Naomi Long Madgett and Jewish Currents editor Morris Schappes; readings and dramatizations; music; and narration.

Set of 3 double-sided cassettes $22.50

Ordering Information: To request a printed catalog with order form contact Emily Auerbach, 21 N Park St., 7th Floor, Madison, WI 53715. Phone 608-262-3733. eauerbach@dcs.wisc.edu. All programs can also be ordered by calling 608-262-4551..

 

THE COURAGE TO WRITE IV: Emily Dickinson

"I have dared to do strange things-bold things, and have asked no advice from any."-EMILY DICKINSON

Emily Dickinson wrote, "I took my power in my hand/ And went against the world." Far from being the deranged, broken-hearted, pitiful old maid depicted by her earlier biographers, Dickinson emerges in her nearly 1,800 poems and 1,000 letters as a fiery, witty, and profound woman determined to remain true to her vision. "I dwell in possibility," she insisted, writing poems about love, pain, science, freedom, madness, language, nature, death, and God. As she observed, "Poets comprehend the whole."

AUDIO PROGRAMS Four one-hour programs uncover the extraordinary life and work of one of the world's greatest poets. "Emily Dickinson and a Room of Her Own" explores Dickinson's unusual life and her poetic range. "Wrestling with the Angel" probes Dickinson's lifelong struggle with God and her search for what she called "a church within my heart." "Emily Dickinson and a Woman's Place" examines why Dickinson wrote "God keep me from what they call households" and fought hard to pursue her "golden dream." "Poets Light But Lamps: The Legacy of Emily Dickinson" offers the words of 20th-century poets Adrienne Rich, Sandra Gilbert, Ronald Wallace, Irene McKinney, Robert Frost, Stephen Crane, Amy Lowell, Sylvia Plath, and Elizabeth Bishop as they respond in varied ways to Dickinson's unique poetic voice. Programs feature extensive readings of Dickinson's poems and letters, musical settings, narration, and scholarly commentary by Professors Sargent Bush, Lynn Keller, Gerda Lerner, and Ronald Wallace. Back to top

Four Double-sided Cassettes $29.95

"Emily Dickinson's verses are remarkable, though odd; too delicate-not strong enough to publish."-THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON

Ordering Information: To request a printed catalog with order form contact Emily Auerbach, 21 N Park St., 7th Floor, Madison, WI 53715. Phone 608-262-3733. eauerbach@dcs.wisc.edu. All programs can also be ordered by calling 608-262-4551..

 

THE COURAGE TO WRITE V: Jane Austen

"I must keep to my own style and go on in my own way."-JANE AUSTEN

Jane Austen may be a "hot" commodity in Hollywood right now, but there is much more to this revolutionary author than elegant costumes and lush greenery. With wit and insight, Austen captures the drama of everyday life in her time-and ours. We meet ourselves and our neighbors on nearly every page of Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Northanger Abbey, Emma, Mansfield Park, and Persuasion.

Four star-studded one-hour programs distributed via National Public Radio satellite feature dramatizations from all six novels and readings from Austen's shocking juvenilia and letters ("We were as civil to them as their bad breath would allow"). Listeners also hear humorists Dave Barry and Andy Rooney, renowned novelists Margaret Drabble, Carol Shields, Fay Weldon, Reginald Hill, Stephanie Barron, and Kelly Cherry, syndicated columnists Mary McGrory and Ellen Goodman, scholars Elaine Bander, Garnet Bass, Jan Fergus, Tom Hoberg, Claudia Johnson, Deborah Kaplan, Kuldip Kuwahara, Juliet McMaster, and Joseph Wiesenfarth, Austen descendant Joan Austen-Leigh, and scores of "Janeites" from around the world.

Discover the extraordinary depth of Jane Austen in four entertaining and educational programs: "Jane Austen and a Style of Her Own," "For Better or Worse: Jane Austen and Marriage," "Prejudice and Pride: The Legacy of Jane Austen," and "Jane Austen, Janeites, and the Jane Austen Society of North America."

Four CDs $29.95*

* available to J.A.S.N.A. members for $26.95, as member dues helped support this series

I think everyone should read everything Jane Austen wrote and then tell me about it so I don't personally have to."-DAVE BARRY

Ordering Information: To request a printed catalog with order form contact Emily Auerbach, 21 N Park St., 7th Floor, Madison, WI 53715. Phone 608-262-3733. eauerbach@dcs.wisc.edu. All programs can also be ordered by calling 608-262-4551..

For more information consult Emily Auerbach at 21 N Park St., 7th Floor, Madison, WI 53715; phone 608-262-3733; email eauerbach@dcs.wisc.edu.