Louisa May Alcott Society: Welcome to the Louisa May Alcott Society!

Please use the tabs above to navigate this site. Scroll down to read our recent and past newsletters.
For information about the Society, please contact President Anne Phillips at annek@ksu.edu.

Please join us in Boston, May 23-26, for two panels at this year's 30th annual conference of the American Literature Association!

Session 1: "Adventures in Alcott Scholarship at the Concord Free Public Library"

Chair: Joel Myerson, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, University of South Carolina

1. “‘Silver Wing’: Louisa May Alcott’s Forgotten Flower Fable,” Daniel Shealy, UNC-Charlotte

2. “Archives and Absence: Reading the Alcotts in the Concord Free Public Library,” Krissie West, Independent Scholar

3. “Alcott Collection-Building and Scholarship at the CFPL: Whereto from Here?” Leslie Perrin Wilson, Curator, William Munroe Special Collections, Concord Free Public Library

Session 2: "Notorious Women, Sensational Texts: The Lives, Writings, and Reforms of Louisa May Alcott and Lydia Maria Child"

Jointly organized with the Lydia Maria Child Society

Co-Chairs: Sandra Burr, Northern Michigan University; and Sandra Harbert Petrulionis, Penn State Altoona

1. “Queer(ed) Kinship and the Sketch: A Genealogy of Political Care in Child and Alcott,” Elizabeth Dean, Rutgers University

2. “Writers, Reformers, and Neighbors: The Ties that Bind Lydia Maria Child and Louisa May Alcott,” Jane Sciacca, Wayland Historical Society and Minutemen National Historic Park, The Wayside

3. “The Spectacle of the City and the Drama of Charity in Child’s and Alcott’s Writings,” Monika Elbert, Montclair State University

Photos from our panels at the 2018 ALA conference in San Francisco

L to R: Melissa McFarland Pennell, Anne K. Phillips, Christine Doyle, Gregory Eiselein

L to R: Elise Hooper, Marlowe Daly-Galeano, Daniel Shealy, Krissie West, Sarah Wadsworth

Photos from our panels at the 2017 ALA conference in Boston

left to right: Sandy Petrulionis, Anne Phillips, Mark Gallagher, Tracey Cummings

left to right: Mischa Renfroe, Katie Waddell, Arielle Zibrak, Jane Rose, Melissa Pennell, Sarah Grey

left to right: society members pose after the annual business meeting

Below are photos of society members and guests in May 2015, celebrating our tenth anniversary as an author society!

Our host for this event was none other than Louisa May herself, who graciously welcomed us to her home and lawn at Orchard House in Concord, Massachusetts!