January 2024
This is the first newsletter from Dermody House, which is the self-publishing house for Joseph P. Garland. You are receiving this because you entered the recent Jane Austen Fan Fiction (JAFF) giveaway on Facebook and kindly allowed the participating authors to include your email address for their newsletters. Fear not. Should you like to unsubscribe, there is a button below to do just that. Should you have suggestions about what you would like to have included in future issues or to make comments, please drop me an email.
Since this is an introduction, I will tell you that I am a New York lawyer. I write stories, including novels and novellas. I have no particular genre except for the umbrella term “Literary Fiction.” For me, this encompasses a fair range of things, from contemporary to Gilded Age to JAFF. Most of my stories are set in and around New York City (though not of course for my JAFF books).
Now, there are those who like my style of writing and there are those who don’t. All I ask is that you dip a toe or two in and decide whether my voice is something that you would, or even might, enjoy spending some time with. My Books page include samples so you can check them out. Also, my three Jane Austen Fan Fiction books are on KindleUnlimited as well as in paperback.
Three Jane Austen Fan Fictions
The three JAFFs are quite different from one another. The Omen at Rosings Park is a conventional variation. It is premised upon Elizabeth marrying Mr. Collins. While there, she is unsettled by Darcy’s visit (with Col. Fitzwilliam) to Lady Catherine at Rosings, as seen in the novel. The Omen then follows the story of she and Darcy after Collins has a fatal fall at the great house. You can sample it here. The audiobook version of it will be coming out later this month.
Becoming Catherine Bennet is more a sequel of P&P than a variation. It imagines that Kitty/Catherine did go to Newcastle to be with Lydia and Wickham. (It gets confusing at times since some characters refer to her as Kitty and some as Catherine.) The book starts when news of the victory at Waterloo reaches London in June 1815, with Lady Catherine already dead from a choking incident and Wickham dead at the battle (leaving Lydia pregnant). The story focuses on Catherine and a great secret to which she confides only with Elizabeth. Things change rapidly for her, including with the help of a revitalized Anne de Bourgh (thanks to Lady C’s death). And we also learn the fate (in my telling at least) of all of the major and most minor characters. It’s on KU, and the first chapters are here.
I have just finished writing a Persuasion sequel. The Diary of Elizabeth Elliot is the largely despised Elizabeth Elliot’s journal of events in her life, beginning shortly after Anne is off to Kellynch Lodge to prepare for her wedding and William Elliot and Mrs. Clay have fled Bath for London. It’s a bit tricky, doing a diary of one of Miss Austen’s most hated creatures. Here, the reemergence of Bonaparte forces Wentworth to return to sea in his own command, informally known as the HMS Anne. It may come as a surprise, but somehow Elizabeth finds love. And so does Sir Walter. (First chapters.)
On Covers
These are the covers for my three JAFF books. One of the pleasures of being an independent author is that I can do my covers howsoever I like. For historical books, including these three JAFFs, I use portraits that are in the public domain and the use of which are permitted by the institution that owns the images I am using. From the upper left and clockwise we have
- “Catherine Bennet” is Mary Sicard David, painted in 1813 by Thomas Sully and is used with permission of the Cleveland Museum of Art.
- “Elizabeth Bennet,” the cover of The Omen, is Mrs. Klapp (Anna Milnor), coincidentally also by Thomas Sully, in this case from The Art Institute of Chicago.
- And “Elizabeth Elliot” is Mary Ellis Bell (Mrs. Isaac Bell), by John Vanderlyn from the National Gallery of Art in Washington; notice the looking glass.
Do these images reflect my view of the character? Or my reader’s? I do not know, but I hope it gives a feel for the stories and distinguishes them from other JAFF stories.
I wrote a blog post on the use of paintings that are in museum collections and copyright issues related to their use. The blog post refers to my republishing public-domain books on Amazon, but since then, Amazon has banned doing so and I have had to unpublish those books, which is a shame since I think they might very good reading copies (and I use my own copies of Austen books with my notes and markings all the time).
What’s in a Name?
My Literary Fiction is written as “Joseph P. Garland.” My romances are written simply as “J.P. Garland.” And I have a third, secret nom de plume for my erotic romances but since it’s a secret, I’m not naming names.
About Dermody House. Dermody was my father’s mother’s initial surname. (My father used it as his middle name.) She, Bridget, was born on New York’s Lower East Side in 1888. Her father, Thomas, died before she was one, and her mother remarried and became a Campbell. You can read a bit about her in Bridget and Joseph in 1918. My Gilded Age stories are reflections in part on the lives of Irish immigrants in the post-Civil War period. (A side thing: FamilySearch.org is a free site loaded with tools for checking out your genealogy, which is where I learned a fair deal about my ancestors from Ireland and Italy.)
A Freebie
There is an audiobook version of Becoming Catherine Bennet. An audiobook of The Omen at Rosings Park with be released in the next month or so. As an inducement, I will be giving away one copy of the audiobook. I can send it either for the US or the UK, and I don’t know the extent to which either can be heard in another country, say Canada or Ireland. If you’re interested, drop me an email at is JPGarlandAuthor@dermodyhouse.com. I will pick one winner randomly from those who respond by January 31.
A Story Reading
One of my stories appeared in Loft, which is a literary magazine out of London. Claire Cronin, the editor, asked me to do a reading of it. It is a bit awkward, because I am a man and the narrator is a woman, so I modified it to make it a guy reading a newly-discovered tale. It was related to my work on several early Gilded Age novels.
Here is a link to How I Became A Writer by Alicia Cadbury, on YouTube.
I am also a regular contributor to the A Muse Bouche Review monthly publication. Each issue contains a collection of short stories or poems on a particular theme. One of my contributions ultimately led to more expansive treatment: Mr. Darcy’s Regret grew into The Omen at Rosings Park. (I often excerpt from my stories in my monthly contribution.) And I have compiled my stories and they can be downloaded as a freebie from my Website; they are in downloadable Word and PDF (and upon request I can send an epub version).
Reaching Me
You can follow or communicate with me on Facebook, Twitter, Post, or Instagram as @JPGarlandAuthor as well as to my email, which is JPGarlandAuthor@dermodyhouse.com. I’m always happy to engage and appreciate comments and suggestions (and corrections) for my books. I have made edits, sometimes significant edits, from comments, including in reviews. (Some reviews refer to things that are no longer in the books thanks to the review.)
An Indie Recommendation
There are books that stick with me. Characters and scenes bound around in my brain. And I can’t pinpoint why it works for one book but not for another. My first recommendation is It Started with a Photograph by Heather Serrano. I don’t know how I learned of it, but I did and I couldn’t put it down and read and re-read certain parts several times. I did not know who Heather was, but now we are friendly in the Writers Community way and she reads my drafts and I read hers. And it started with this book.
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Mount Vernon, NY
(You know. Just north of the Bronx.)
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