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Welcome to the Louisa May Alcott Society!

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Formed in 2005, the Louisa May Alcott Society offers the opportunity for readers, fans, and scholars to study and appreciate the life and works of Louisa May Alcott. An American Literature Association-allied organization, the Alcott Society sponsors panels and other activities at its annual meetings. To join or to make a donation, just click  here . You can also follow us on Twitter at @AlcottSociety .  For more information about the Society, please contact the Society President at louisamayalcottsociety@gmail.com . For information about other Alcott-focused entities, including Orchard House, the Concord museum and home of the Alcotts, the Facebook group dedicated to Alcott, and other resources, please visit our page of Alcott Studies Links . 

Celebrating Alcott, November 30, 2025

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You are invited to our annual virtual celebration! Celebrating Alcott! Join us for a virtual celebration on November 30 at 12 pm PST / 1 pm MST / 2 pm CST / 3 pm EST.   Featuring speakers Lauren Hehmeyer, editor of   Beyond Little Women: The Secondary Works of Louisa May Alcott   and Liz Rosenberg, editor of   A Strange Life: Selected Essays of Louisa May Alcott   This one-hour event will be held on Zoom:   https://lcsc.zoom.us/j/7967888338 .   For more information, contact Marlowe Daly-Galeano at   hmdalygaleano@lcsc.edu  

Max Chapnick Awarded the Beverly Lyon Clark Article Prize

At the Louisa May Alcott Society's annual business meeting in Boston this year,  Max   L.   Chapnick  was awarded the Beverly Lyon Clark Article Prize  for his essay, "Duty and Ambition in Louisa May Alcott Poems, Old and New."  Committee members had this to say about the essay: Chapnick's article "makes significant new contributions ... by attending to Alcott’s poetry, which is understudied, attributing previously unattributed poems to Alcott and offering a compelling discussion of their significance.   Max ’s discussion asserts that these poems (and his discussion of them) contributes to the case for the other previously unattributed stories he has identified. I admire the readings he offers of the individual poems. He both situates them within the broader context of 19th century poetry by women and within Alcott’s body of work, offering an elegant argument for how these poems contribute to our understanding of the tension between duty and ambit...

Now accepting applications for Sarah Elbert travel grants

The Alcott Society is offering up to three travel grants of $400 each to support students and non-tenure-track members of the Society to attend present on Alcott at an academic conference in the 2025 calendar year.  These grants, supported financially by the Alcott Society and its members and donors, are meant to encourage Alcott scholarship and to honor the career and memory of Sarah Elbert, a literary historian whose important research charted exciting new paths for Alcott scholarship. Applying is easy. Please just send the abstract for your paper, information about its acceptance and conference venue, and a one-page vita to Marlowe Daly-Galeano at hmdalygaleano@lcsc.edu. We encourage students and NTT members of the Society to see these travel grants as a possible source for financial support for sharing their Alcott research with a larger audience.