Let Genius Burn
Louisa May Alcott may be best known for the beloved book Little Women, but her story doesn’t begin or end with her famous novel. On Let Genius Burn, we separate the layers of Louisa’s life to learn more about who she really was--and all the ways her legacy continues to resonate today. We’ll explore the traumatic year of her childhood spent in an experimental utopian community, her service as a Civil War nurse, her final years of wealth and celebrity as a children’s author--and more intimate details and little-known stories of Louisa’s life. Instead of a retelling of Louisa May Alcott’s biography, each episode in the 8-part series examines Louisa's life through a different lens--Louisa as a celebrity, writer, activist, daughter, and more-- highlighting her complexity as a person, woman, and historical figure. Ahead of her time, Louisa railed against the limitations of her gender and fought for women’s suffrage. She craved literary greatness, but was weighed down by the financial needs of her family. Through writing scandalous Gothic thrillers, she found a way to voice her own inner turmoil. In the end, she achieved extraordinary financial success, but creative fulfillment remained elusive.We’ll examine all of this and more on Let Genius Burn. Find more on Instagram and Facebook @letgeniusburn or at letgeniusburn.com.
Episodes
37 episodes
Alcotts in Paradise
In 1843, the Alcott family spent about nine months on a farm in central Massachusetts, a utopian experiment they called Fruitlands. The failure of this project marked a turning point in their lives as a family.Louisa May Alcott memoriali...
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Louisa and Abolition
Join us as we explore Louisa May Alcott in the broader context of Concord’s abolitionist movement, including her family’s activism, her interaction with fellow abolitionists, and the importance of Black abolitionist women in shaping the cause t...
Alcott for the Future
For over twenty years, the Louisa May Alcott Society has brought together Alcott scholars from around the world to discuss the work and relevance of Louisa May Alcott’s writing. The Society hosts panels and events at literature conferences and ...
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Concord in Context
In today’s episode, we welcome Jen Turner, the Executive Director of the Robbins House Museum in Concord, Massachusetts. This historical house museum, situated today at the Minuteman National Park, is the hub of Concord’s African-American hi...
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Alcott & Ecotherapy
Through Alcott’s upbringing amidst the Transcendentalists, ideas about the healing power of nature found their way into her life and her written work. Much of what humans have long known about the connection to nature is now being grounded in s...
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Louisa and Lydia
Lydia Olsson (1874-1958) was the daughter of Swedish immigrants, born in Kansas in the late nineteenth century. She moved to Illinois and attended Augustana College, where she kept diaries the documented her experience as a young woman coming o...
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Little Women Reimagined
In this conversation with authors Linda Epstein, Ally Malinenko, and Liz Parker, we discuss the authors' individual relationships to Little Women and how it influenced their writing of The Other March Sisters. We also discuss:How th...
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Alcott in Our Own Time
In this episode, where the title nods to a seminal Alcott text, Alcott in Her Own Time, edited by Daniel Shealy, Jamie and Jill reconnect about what has changed since they first began making Let Genius Burn in the winter of 2019-2020. ...
Little Women Holiday Bonus Episode
Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without Little Women, so we are reading aloud from the iconic first chapter, "Playing Pilgrims" and offering our commentary, citing from various annotated editions of Little Women and the film versions to bring y...
Alcott as Ecofeminist
Travel with us to a Cuban coffee plantation, where Alcott's short story Pauline's Passion and Punishment begins. Written in 1862, this short story predates Alcott's later, more successful fiction, but it contains all the traces of her plot devi...
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Alcott in the Archives
Max Chapnick read a line in Louisa May Alcott's journal that pointed to one of her stories, but it turned out to be a dead end. Then, he had an idea. He went back to the archives and searched for the title of the story. He turned up an unexpect...
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Louisa and Laurie
When readers find out that Louisa May Alcott really lived in a family with four sisters, the next question is almost immediately: "Who was Laurie?"Lis Adams, Director of Education at Louisa May Alcott's Orchard House, spent years resear...
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Alcott and Identity
Author Peyton Thomas joins Let Genius Burn to speak about queerness and transness in Little Women and other Alcott writings. Peyton Thomas made a significant impact on the Alcott community when he wrote a Twitter thread, and a New York Times op...
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Alcott and Sex Education
Louisa May Alcott and her family were social activists who advocated for all types of reforms in their lifetimes: they were concerned with fair labor, women's suffrage, abolitionism, and diet reform. Yet another social concern for Louisa May Al...
Alcott in the City
Although Louisa May Alcott is most often associated with Concord, Massachusetts, where her family lived in several different homes over the course of her lifetime, Alcott made much of her life in Boston. She was a city person who loved the hust...
A Concord Conversation
Sit down with Jill and Jamie as they reflect and dissect the week they spent together in Concord. They talk about visits to Orchard House, Fruitlands, Walden Pond, and more. Jill discusses her visit to the Special Collections at the Concord Fre...
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The Fruitlands Effect
On July 13, 2022, Let Genius Burn was invited to speak at Fruitlands Museum in Harvard, Massachusetts, the site where the Alcott family lived--and nearly died--for 9 months in 1843.This episode is the recording of our talk.The F...
Concord Sketches
This episode features Jill's travelogue from her week in Concord, Massachusetts. Listen as we travel to see Louisa May Alcott's Orchard House for the first time and take a tour of Fruitlands with Trustees Engagement Manager Catherine Shortliffe...
Louisa Revisited
In our final full episode of Season 8, Jill and Jamie recap the highlights of season two and reflect on what the conversations with Alcott scholars have taught them. Then they both share what they've been reading and researching lately. Jamie, ...
Louisa as Inspiration: Conversation with Biographer John Matteson
John Matteson's biography, Eden's Outcasts: the Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father, has become a foundational work in Alcott scholarship. It brings together the best of Alcott studies to show us an empathetic portrait of the Alc...
Little Women in Letters: Conversation with Barbara Heller, Editor of Little Women
If you’re anything like us, you’ve watched the Little Women film adaptations looking for the props and pieces that really bring the book to life–the vivid renderings of your own thoughtfully-imagined ephemera. Barbara Helle...
Louisa Through the Ages: Conversation with Daniel Shealy
Most Alcott scholars cannot imagine what it would be like to do research without the Selected Letters and Selected Journals of Louisa May Alcott, these two seminal works that make Alcott's work so accessible.Dr. Daniel...
Louisa in Style: Conversation with Lauren Stern about May Alcott Nieriker and Historical Dress
Meet Lauren Stern: a researcher interested in social and material history. She has been a staff member at Louisa May Alcott's Orchard House since 2006, where she has worked to bring New England history alive through summer camps, museum tours, ...
Louisa and Maud: Conversation with Stef and Jen, Co-Creators of Maud: Books, Babes, and Barbiturates
Maud: Books, Babes, and Barbiturates is a podcast about the life of Lucy Maud Montgomery, the author of Anne of Green Gables. The co-creators, Stef Drummon and Jen MacLennan, tell Maud's story with empat...
Louisa in Threads: Conversation with Fruitlands Artist-in-Residence Leslie Schomp
In this episode, we are talking with Leslie Schomp, who served as an artist-in-residence at Fruitlands in 2021. Leslie drew inspiration from Louisa’s diaries to create textile pieces that embodied and expressed Louisa May Alcott’s time there. H...
