We invite you to participate in our 2026 series: 
Unsung Characters
Please register below and, in the meantime, enjoy the recordings of our previous events!

{Featuring a scene from a new adaptation of Persuasion by Katherine Koller, directed by Caroline Howarth and read by Erika Holba, Lori Mohacsy and Lauren Tanke, with videography by Kalli Elder} Playwright Katherine Koller talks about the process of adapting Persuasion for the stage and why she chose to include Mrs. Smith and Nurse Rooke in her play. In a close reading of the text, Anne’s friend and friend-of-a-friend test Anne’s loyalty, not only in love, but in friendship, and illuminate Anne’s rosy glasses, her “dear self," and inherent awareness of rank. In the reader’s theatre clip presented, Anne gets a reality check that confirms her constancy to Frederick Wentworth, provides a chosen sisterhood, and prepares her for a life-changing debate with an audience of one. Katherine Koller’s first plays, Cowboy Boots and a Corsage and Magpie, aired on CBC radio. Stage plays include the Alberta LandWorks Trilogy: Coal Valley: The Making of a Miner (Royal Tyrrell Museum), The Seed Savers (Workshop West/Station Arts Theatre), and Alberta Playwriting Competition winner, Last Chance Leduc (Theatre Rising/Backstage Theatre). Riverkeeper was a finalist in the Alberta Playwriting Competition. Recent audio plays are Hope Soup (Edmonton Fringe) and The Percussionist, with music by George Koller (Script Salon). Katherine’s books include Voices of the Land: The Seed Savers and Other Plays; a novel, Art Lessons, finalist for the Edmonton Book Prize and the Alberta Readers’ Choice Award; and Winning Chance: Stories, which won a High Plains Book Award and the Exporting Alberta Award. A second collection of short stories, Earthen, is upcoming in May 2026. Katherine Koller is a former Associate Lecturer at the University of Alberta, founding producer of Edmonton Script Salon, a monthly new play reading series now in its twelfth year, and a recent member of the Citadel Playwrights Lab writing an adaptation of Persuasion (Citadel Collider Festival), which will be performed in November 2026 (Concordia University of Edmonton). Follow her @KatKoll on X, Katherine Koller on FB, or KathScrab on Instagram.

How did Jane Austen define contemplation? In her novel Persuasion, Sir Walter Elliot narcissistically contemplates his own name in the baronetage, but his daughter Anne pensively contemplates the sea. In Northanger Abbey, the novel bound together with Persuasion in 1817, Eleanor Tilney, like Anne Elliot, contemplates landscapes with thoughtful reflection. We will consider how Eleanor’s contemplative practices are shaped by her reading, which ranges from novelist Ann Radcliffe to philosopher David Hume. ​​Natasha Duquette’s current research focuses on the reciprocal relationship between theological contemplation and poetics. She has presented her work at meetings of the Jane Austen Society of North America, as well as in the UK, for the British Association of Romantic Studies, and in public lectures at the University of St. Andrews, in Scotland, and Gladstone’s Library, in Wales. Fellowships at Chawton House led to her books 30-Day Journey with Jane Austen (2020) and Veiled Intent: Dissenting Women’s Aesthetic Approach to Biblical Interpretations (2016), as well as to her co-edited collection Jane Austen and the Arts: Elegance, Propriety, Harmony (2013) and ongoing work as editor-in-chief for The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Romantic-Era Women’s Writing. Dr. Duquette lives in the small village of Killaloe, Ontario, Canada, with her husband Frederick Duquette, and she teaches at Our Lady Seat of Wisdom College where she is a Professor in the Literature Department. 🎙️ New to streaming or looking to level up? Check out StreamYard and get $10 discount! 😍 https://streamyard.com/pal/d/5607618168750080

Jane Austen had a high regard for the church. Why, then, does she present Mr. Collins as a buffoon? Why is he so deferential to Lady Catherine, and so proud of his position and his parsonage? Does he typify the neglectful clergyman Edmund Bertram describes in Mansfield Park? We’ll explore Mr. Collins’s words, actions, and character, including his marriage proposal, comparing him to Austen’s other clergymen, satirical cartoons, and Anglican and Evangelical ideals of the time. Brenda S. Cox is the author of Fashionable Goodness: Christianity in Jane Austen’s England. She spent almost ten years researching her own questions about Austen and the church and organizing the information she discovered, making it clear and easy to understand. Fashionable Goodness explores connections between Austen’s work, Austen’s Church of England, and prominent events and people in English Christianity at the time. Brenda writes for Jane Austen’s World; her own blog, Faith, Science, Joy, and Jane Austen; and the magazine Jane Austen’s Regency World. She has spoken on Jane Austen and the church to Austen groups in Canada, England, Australia, New Zealand, and various parts of the United States. 🎙️ New to streaming or looking to level up? Check out StreamYard and get $10 discount! 😍 https://streamyard.com/pal/d/5607618168750080