Originally from Michigan, Sarah J. Makowski earned her Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Aachen. Her debut book, Bitches in Bonnets: Life Lessons from Jane Austen’s Mean Girls (Prometheus), explores how Jane Austen anticipated modern social scientific findings on female behavior. Called “a must read for Jane Austen fans,” Bitches in Bonnets is a conversational, personal look at Austen’s flawed but loveable female characters. “Hilarious, yet deep and dark at the same time,” Bitches in Bonnets encourages readers to examine their own actions in both literature and life.

Austen Pod Squad Hosts, Marcia Johnson and Sherry Lockwood chat with Sarah Makowski, a member of JASNA Virtual Region, about the Life Lessons from Jane Austen’s Mean Girls and how she came to write the book and how Austen has remained relevant down through the generations.  We do not have to ask where all the mean girls have gone, they are still with us.  Sarah shares experiences and insights that illustrate that while fashions and technology may have changed, human behavior, to paraphrase, Lizzie Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, people remain “in essentials very much, I believe, what they ever have been.”