Let Genius Burn
22 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 1 year ago - ★★★★★ - 33 ratingsLouisa May Alcott may be best known for the beloved book Little Women, but her story doesn’t begin or end with her famous novel. On Let Genius Burn, a new podcast series coming July 12, we’re separating the layers of Louisa’s life to learn more about who she really was--and all the ways her legacy continues to resonate today.We’ll explore the traumatic year of her childhood spent in an experimental utopian community, her service as a Civil War nurse, her final years of wealth and celebrity as a children’s author--and more intimate details and little-known stories of Louisa’s life.Instead of a retelling of Louisa May Alcott’s biography, each episode in the 8-part series examines Louisa's life through a different lens--Louisa as a celebrity, writer, activist, daughter, and more-- highlighting her complexity as a person, woman, and historical figure. Ahead of her time, Louisa railed against the limitations of her gender and fought for women’s suffrage. She craved literary greatness, but was weighed down by the financial needs of her family. Through writing scandalous Gothic thrillers, she found a way to voice her own inner turmoil. In the end, she achieved extraordinary financial success, but creative fulfillment remained elusive.We’ll examine all of this and more on Let Genius Burn. Find more on Instagram and Facebook @letgeniusburn or at letgeniusburn.com.
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Episodes
A Concord Conversation
December 12, 2022 09:00 - 46 minutes - 31.6 MBSit down with Jill and Jamie as they reflect and dissect the week they spent together in Concord. They talk about visits to Orchard House, Fruitlands, Walden Pond, and more. Jill discusses her visit to the Special Collections at the Concord Free Public Library, where she saw Louisa's handwritten manuscript pages from Little Women. Jamie talks about her presentation for the Thoreau Society Gathering- the ecofeminist gothic setting of "Pauline's Passion and Punishment." It's an all-about-Alcot...
The Fruitlands Effect
December 05, 2022 10:00 - 55 minutes - 38.3 MBOn July 13, 2022, Let Genius Burn was invited to speak at Fruitlands Museum in Harvard, Massachusetts, the site where the Alcott family lived--and nearly died--for 9 months in 1843. This episode is the recording of our talk. The Fruitlands Effect: How the Utopian Experiment Influenced Louisa May Alcott’s Life and Work The Alcott family spent less than a year living at Fruitlands, but the experience significantly altered their values and family dynamic. Louisa May Alcott would not have bee...
Concord Sketches
November 28, 2022 10:00 - 49 minutes - 33.8 MBThis episode features Jill's travelogue from her week in Concord, Massachusetts. Listen as we travel to see Louisa May Alcott's Orchard House for the first time and take a tour of Fruitlands with Trustees Engagement Manager Catherine Shortliffe. We also spend time with other Louisa May Alcott scholars and enthusiasts, sharing stories. In particular, we taste pickled limes, a treat from the 19th century, which is featured in Little Women. Learn about the process to making them and our reactio...
Louisa Revisited
June 20, 2022 09:00 - 50 minutes - 34.8 MBIn our final full episode of Season 8, Jill and Jamie recap the highlights of season two and reflect on what the conversations with Alcott scholars have taught them. Then they both share what they've been reading and researching lately. Jamie, who has been teaching second grade this year, dives into the differences between teaching Little Women and teaching about the Alcotts' lives to young children. She explores picture books and young reader chapter books that feature Louisa. Jill visited...
Louisa as Inspiration: Conversation with Biographer John Matteson
June 13, 2022 09:00 - 1 hour - 44.8 MBJohn Matteson's biography, Eden's Outcasts: the Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father, has become a foundational work in Alcott scholarship. It brings together the best of Alcott studies to show us an empathetic portrait of the Alcotts who feel as real and alive as ever in its pages. In our conversation with John Matteson, we cover Louisa's time in Washington as a nurse during the Civil War and why those three weeks were so influential in the rest of her life. We also discuss John's wr...
Little Women in Letters: Conversation with Barbara Heller, Editor of Little Women
June 06, 2022 09:00 - 44 minutes - 30.8 MBIf you’re anything like us, you’ve watched the Little Women film adaptations looking for the props and pieces that really bring the book to life–the vivid renderings of your own thoughtfully-imagined ephemera. Barbara Heller worked on movie set designs for feature films for many years, bringing all kinds of stories to life through location scouting and other roles. Then, she was rereading Pride and Prejudice when she had a sudden and visceral desire to hold characters' letters to each othe...
Louisa Through the Ages: Conversation with Daniel Shealy
May 30, 2022 10:00 - 1 hour - 42.4 MBMost Alcott scholars cannot imagine what it would be like to do research without the Selected Letters and Selected Journals of Louisa May Alcott, these two seminal works that make Alcott's work so accessible. Dr. Daniel Shealy, however, knows exactly what it's like--because he was part of the team that edited these two publications, bringing together hundreds of letters from around the country and compiling them into the legible, useful edition that Alcott scholars depend on for their work....
Louisa in Style: Conversation with Lauren Stern about May Alcott Nieriker and Historical Dress
May 23, 2022 08:00 - 58 minutes - 40 MBMeet Lauren Stern: a researcher interested in social and material history. She has been a staff member at Louisa May Alcott's Orchard House since 2006, where she has worked to bring New England history alive through summer camps, museum tours, and living history programs. In this episode, Lauren discusses her experiences at Orchard House as well as her research on the life of May Alcott Nieriker. As an expert in historical fashion, Lauren also discusses the fashion trends during the decade...
Louisa and Maud: Conversation with Stef and Jen, Co-Creators of Maud: Books, Babes, and Barbiturates
May 16, 2022 08:00 - 47 minutes - 32.4 MBMaud: Books, Babes, and Barbiturates is a podcast about the life of Lucy Maud Montgomery, the author of Anne of Green Gables. The co-creators, Stef Drummon and Jen MacLennan, tell Maud's story with empathy, intelligence, and depth. This week, they join us on Let Genius Burn to talk about our two favorite literary women. Gender and sexuality, fame, and family influence and history- we talk about it all. We discuss the respective scholarly approaches to each author, and how their legacies ha...
Louisa in Threads: Conversation with Fruitlands Artist-in-Residence Leslie Schomp
May 09, 2022 08:00 - 51 minutes - 35.4 MBIn this episode, we are talking with Leslie Schomp, who served as an artist-in-residence at Fruitlands in 2021. Leslie drew inspiration from Louisa’s diaries to create textile pieces that embodied and expressed Louisa May Alcott’s time there. Her samplers capture the dichotomy of this place: the distance between the restrictive ideals of the community and the vibrant, free spirit of young Louisa. Leslie Schomp’s open heart captured another layer of Louisa May Alcott that has not yet been fu...
Louisa Into Life: Interview with Jan Turnquist, Executive Director of Louisa May Alcott's Orchard House
May 02, 2022 09:00 - 46 minutes - 31.7 MBJan Turnquist, Executive Director of Louisa May Alcott's Orchard House, has made her life about Louisa's legacy. Whether she is portraying Louisa May Alcott around the world, consulting on Little Women adaptations with A-list actors, or simply showing someone around the house museum, she brings the same level of commitment and enthusiasm for sharing Louisa May Alcott with others. In this episode, Jan shares the story of how she started portraying Louisa May Alcott for the public and how it ...
Bonus Episode: Selected Passages
November 01, 2021 08:00 - 1 hour - 45.2 MBIn the first bonus episode of Let Genius Burn, Jill and Jamie dive into the details of three passages from Louisa's work beyond Little Women. Listeners will learn about the different ways Louisa's life experiences shape her writings. Plus, after twenty months of working together on Let Genius Burn, Jill and Jamie finally meet in person!
Louisa as Legacy
September 06, 2021 08:00 - 59 minutes - 40.6 MBAt the time of Louisa May Alcott's death, she was known to most as the "children's friend," an author of children's books and particularly books for girls. As time passed and scholars made the connection between Louisa May Alcott and the lurid thrillers she wrote under pen names, Louisa's legacy took on new dimensions. Today, we can appreciate Louisa May Alcott as the feminist and forward-thinking woman who is also the author of a famous novel called Little Women. This episode discusses Loui...
Louisa as Woman
August 30, 2021 08:00 - 53 minutes - 36.9 MBIn Louisa May Alcott's time, strict definitions and expectations of white womanhood permeated Louisa’s society and culture. Marriage and motherhood were the accepted roles for women; voting was inaccessible and illegal, education restricted, and earning a living through a career was limited. Louisa May Alcott defied gender expectations, sometimes through her acting as a way to embody a male character and through her dress, language, and active lifestyle. From a topsey-turvey girl to a self-m...
Louisa as Celebrity
August 23, 2021 08:00 - 52 minutes - 36.3 MBWhen Little Women became a sensation, Louisa May Alcott became the ultimate literary celebrity. Fans were waiting out on her lawn and knocking on her door, and her life was suddenly not her own. Although she had always yearned for fame, she was surprised to find it costly and unpleasant. Still, her celebrity opened new doors for her. It gave voice to her causes, and it may have even spurred her creativity. In this episode, we unpack how Louisa's celebrity status defined the last twenty years...
Louisa as Activist
August 16, 2021 08:00 - 49 minutes - 34.1 MBLouisa devoted her life to the causes she believed in, primarily abolition and women's suffrage. Her political beliefs were handed down from her parents, who were constantly striving for a better world. The Alcotts made their home available to freedom seekers on the Underground Railroad, and Louisa eventually became a nurse during the Civil War, as she was otherwise not allowed to go and fight. She was also the first woman registered to vote in Concord. Learn about food reform, dress reform,...
Louisa as Scribbler
August 09, 2021 08:00 - 52 minutes - 36.1 MBIn this episode, we pull back the curtain to take a peek at Louisa at her writing desk. We will trace the development of her writing style, the desires that pushed her to write, and the arc of her professional career. From crafting jolly tales to journaling her worries and struggles, Louisa spent her life meeting herself on the page. Writing, she said, “is my salvation when disappointment or weariness burden and darken my soul…” Through introspection and observation, she explored herself an...
Louisa at Work
August 02, 2021 08:00 - 45 minutes - 31.1 MBBefore she became an author and celebrity, Louisa May Alcott was a teacher, seamstress, governess, companion, servant, and nurse. Though they were difficult, her experiences gave her material to write for the rest of her life. This week, learn about Louisa May Alcott's relationship with work, which was both her salvation and the bane of her existence. Learn more at letgeniusburn.com Donate to Educational Opportunities Fund: https://www.educationalopportunitiesfund.org/donate/
Louisa as Sister
July 26, 2021 08:00 - 54 minutes - 37.2 MBOnce upon a time, four sisters became immortal. When they were young, the four girls were still flesh and blood, ordinary girls who built towers out of their father’s books and put on plays in the barn for their neighbors and went hungry too many nights. One day, when they were all grown up, the second sister took out her magic pen and began to write down the stories of their adventures: the simple yet profound drama of growing up into women and forging their own paths. Like a spell, she tra...
Louisa as Daughter
July 19, 2021 08:00 - 51 minutes - 35.4 MBBefore Louisa May Alcott grew up to be a famous children's author, she belonged to her parents: Bronson Alcott and Abigail May Alcott. Bronson was an educator whose lofty ideas brought him to the forefront of the Transcendentalist philosophy movement. Abigail May Alcott was a social worker and ardent supporter of women's suffrage. Together, they created a family where their four daughters were encouraged to be active, creative individuals. This is the story of Louisa May Alcott as a daughter...
Louisa May Alcott: An Introduction
July 12, 2021 08:00 - 31 minutes - 21.5 MBA short biography of Louisa's life lays the groundwork for this series. Meet the hosts of Let Genius Burn and hear about why we believe Louisa May Alcott was a singular genius in her generation. This is Let Genius Burn.
Trailer: Let Genius Burn
June 28, 2021 00:00 - 2 minutes - 1.61 MBWelcome to Let Genius Burn, a podcast series about the life and legacy of Louisa May Alcott created by Jill Fuller and Jamie Burgess. Louisa May Alcott is best known for her novel Little Women, but her story doesn't begin or end with her famous novel. Learn about the layers of Louisa's life, from her extraordinary childhood as the daughter of a Transcendentalist philosopher to the wealth and celebrity of her later years as a children's author. Let Genius Burn launches July 12, 2021. In the...