Hi Austen fans,

You might be expecting me to be reporting from the Jane Austen Society of North America Annual General Meeting happening this week in Dallas, Texas. But I’m not. No, today I’ll be blogging to you (through the magic of my smartphone) from the New York Comic Con!!!

Because I just had to cement my reputation as the weirdest of the Austen Authors. (Vera’s giving me a run for the title) Actually, I’m going because I’m a completely out-of-the-computer-closet Geek and I love geek culture. That’s what Comic Con is all about- It’s not just comic books. NYCC happens annually at the Jacob Javits Center in New York City. It’s a gathering for creators and fans of science fiction and fantasy books, movies, computer games, TV shows and yes, comic books. There is also an Anime festival happening at the same time one floor down. (Anime is a wildly popular type of Japanese animation.)

So, you’re wondering what this has to do with Jane Austen, and I’ll admit it’s a bit of a stretch, but I’ll try: there are literary authors at Comic Con, and last year there was a whole booth for Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. (Okay, I’ll admit that’s a pretty weak example) Also, Marvel comics have adapted Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility and Emma into comic book form. I’m hoping they continue with Northanger Abbey, Persuasion and Mansfield Park, in roughly that order.

But the main reason NYCC is relevant to Austen (besides its being just so cool) is Austen’s own timelessness. Her plots are true classics that can be adapted for many different settings. That very much includes Science Fiction, Fantasy, or even Super-Heroes *whistles innocently* And Jane Austen based media is certainly not limited to books, but includes movies, TV, computer games, comics, or really any thing that allows someone to tell a story to another.

Now, I know I’ve blogged about Austen’s widespread adaptability before, but it’s something I am very committed too. I really believe the bones of Jane Austen’s stories are universal, thanks to her phenomenal understanding of human nature. I believe those bones can and are used all over, in many, many formats. Honestly, I just enjoy noticing them, seeing her works retold in new and different ways. So that’s what I’ll be doing at Comic Con as I see the sights and learn about what new pleasures we can expect from the geeking world.

Heather Lynn Rigaud is the author of Fitzwilliam Darcy Rock Star.

And the winners are … Lieder Madchen and Con H. – congratulations to you both!

Since Persuade Me was launched on 15th September, it’s had incredible reviews and been shortlisted for the Festival of Romance Best Romantic Read.

And The Importance of Being Emma actually  won the 2011 Big Red Read Fiction Award.

All of this is thanks to my wonderful readers!

The winner of the ARC for Mr. Darcy’s Bite from my blog is Sophia Rose.

The winner of Mr. Darcy’s Bite from the Austen Authors entry is Margaret.

Congratulations, Ladies. You will be receiving an e-mail from me shortly asking for your mailing information. If you enjoy the story, I hope you will let me know and consider posting a review on Barnes and Noble and/or Amazon. If you don’t like it, please remember that silence is golden.

Thank you to everyone who stopped by my blog and Austen Authors to help me celebrate my launch.

Sukkot, or the Feast of Tabernacles as it’s known in Christian literature, is a major holiday dating back to biblical times. It’s the only holiday other than Passover that lasts for 7 days, though fortunately only the first two days are yom tovs – days where we can’t use electricity or travel or work blah blah blah. The intermediary days are known as Hol Moed, when we can do ordinary things with certain holiday restrictions. In Israel it’s a national vacation week, and a lot of people do some traveling and the like. The major Israeli sci-fi convention, Icon, occurres during Hol Moed of Sukkot.

The major bit about Sukkot, around which the holiday revolves, is the building of and eating in a sukkah, which is a kind of hut that Jews must eat in the whole week to remind of us of the mobile life we had when we wandered for forty years in the desert of Sinai, relying on G-d’s decision not to have it rain that day and get it wet. The laws of building a sukkah are very specific, but here are the key points:

1. Though it may touch other buildings, it must be a free-standing structure without foundation or support from other structures.

2. It must be at least 8 feet tall – probably more, come to think of it – and have at least 3 sides.

3. Though the walls of the sukka may be constructed of anything sturdy, the roof must be covered in skath, which are materials like palm leaves, branches, or bamboo, so that you can see the stars when you look up and are exposed to the elements.

4. The sukkah must not be under any other structure, such as another building or trees, so the sky view is not blocked. If you live in an apartment in a city, this is by far the most frustrating law, because you have to see if the city will let you build a sukkah in your courtyard, on your roof, or in some cases, on the sidewalk in front of your building. Communal sukkahs are common here in NYC, and my apartment is fortunate enough to have one, but if you live in a high rise and you have to go to eat in the sukkah at the local synagogue and you can’t use the elevator on Yom Tov and Shabbat, it’s very annoying. My parents in New Jersey build theirs on their porch; most people put them in the driveway or on their lawn.

Sukkahs on balconies in Jerusalem, where apartment complexes are actually designed with this in mind.

5. The sukkah must be constructed between Yom Kippur and the start of Sukkot, which is a 4 day window. After the holiday it is taken down and the materials saved for next year.

Laws and Customs of Sukkot

1. Men must eat all of their meals in the sukkah. Some men say that this only applies to meals that have bread, which qualifies it in Rabbinic terms as a meal, and they will just avoid bread when they don’t want to eat in the sukkah. Some men are strict, and eat everything in the sukkah. Women are not obligated to eat in the sukkah because women are not obligated to time-bound mitzvot, but they often do for holiday meals because everyone else is. This week makes me really happy to be a woman, because I can be really lazy if it’s chilly outside or I’m just trying to eat my breakfast without a whole mishigas of taking everything outside.

2. Both men and women are exempt from eating in the sukkah if it is too cold or raining. I just assume my Russian ancestors never ate in their sukkah, though they certainly did construct one.

3. Many people have a custom (which is different from a law) to sleep in the sukkah. This custom is far more popular in places where it’s still warm in October. I’ve never slept in a sukkah.

4. It is important, but not a law, to decorate the inside of the sukkah. Most people put up fruits (plastic, to avoid bees) and in America, dried corn cobs, because Sukkot is a harvest time holiday. We also use streamers, Christmas lights, posters, and other things that will get totally destroyed when it rains because we are stupid.

5. Kosher restaurants, if they can, will often put up sukkahs so that people can eat in the restaurants on Hal Moed (when we can spend money). In Israel, even Burger King had a rudimentary sukkah. Other places where Jews stay – hospitals, hotels – will often put up a communal sukkah.

6. One can actually keep the sukkah up the rest of the year, and turn it into kind of a deck, but it then becomes a permanent structure and you cannot use it the next year and must construct a new sukkah. It also marks you as kind of a weirdo. Illegal settlers in Israel do this all the time, actually – they’re not allowed to build in the area, but they are allowed to put up a sukkah, so to skirt the law they put the sukkah and then don’t take it down, but instead seal it up with real building materials after the holiday and hope no one notices their house has another room, then repeat the process the following year.

The Lulav and Etrog

Judaism was developed in an agrarian society, and that's why I shake a palm branch and a tasteless fruit in my Manhattan apartment surrounded entirely by concrete and gravel

By far the most confounding law to other people on my subway is the carrying of the lulav and etrog, which is taken to synagogue and shook every day except Shabbat. The lulav is a palm branch with two sticks of myrtle and two sticks of willow attached on each side, and the etrog is a citron fruit with is really expensive before Sukkot and like a dime after. By biblical commandment, each day we hold the lulav in one hand and the etrog in another, and shake them in what must be the most obvious fertility ritual ever, though somehow we manage to do it with a straight face every year.

Price-gouging is common for etrogim/lulav sets. Sometimes the prices are raised very high and the money is given to tzedakah (charity), and sometimes the guy selling you one is just a jerk. Last year I think I bought one for $15 and this year I couldn’t find one for under $25, with the guy at the stand blaming Egypt for their palm-branch embargo even though most of the palm branches in America do not come from Egypt.

(If some of this sounds familiar to you, it’s probably because the custom of carrying actual palm branches on Palm Sunday in Christianity is derived from this custom)

Buying a really great etrog and paying too much for it is said to bring good luck. This is taken to the extreme of people paying hundreds of dollars for their etrog. There’s actually a good Israeli movie called Ushpizin (guests) about a poor Hasidic couple in Jerusalem who recieve a special government stipend and decide to spend it entirely on the best etrog available, and then there’s a happy ending.

After the holiday, the etrog may be eaten. The Mishnah (second century CE) says, “Forthwith[after the holiday], the children threw away their lulavin and ate their citrons,” (Mishnah Sukkot, 4:7) but it’s not very good as a fruit. I can’t recommend it.

Up next: Shmini Atzeret, the made-up holiday, and Simfas Torah, my favorite holiday.