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Write with Jane Austen: Masterclasses with the Master Storyteller
It is a truth universally acknowledged that if a writer wishes to write well, she should learn from the very best of writers. In other words, she should study with Jane Austen.
Write with Jane Austen is the definitive guide on improving your writing through lessons and examples from Austen’s six published novels and from her unpublished works. This book will help you craft a character’s internal and external journeys, create effective antagonists and obstacles, construct compelling relationships, capture a setting without disrupting the forward movement of the narrative, improve your style, and compose dialogue that brings the characters and story to life. Each chapter contains writing exercises to help you internalize and apply these principles.
Whether you write romance, women’s fiction, historical fiction, mystery, or any other genre, these masterclasses will enable you to emulate Jane Austen’s proven techniques and improve your storytelling. This guide will also increase any reader’s appreciation for Austen’s craft.
Write with Jane Austen is the definitive guide on improving your writing through lessons and examples from Austen’s six published novels and from her unpublished works. This book will help you craft a character’s internal and external journeys, create effective antagonists and obstacles, construct compelling relationships, capture a setting without disrupting the forward movement of the narrative, improve your style, and compose dialogue that brings the characters and story to life. Each chapter contains writing exercises to help you internalize and apply these principles.
Whether you write romance, women’s fiction, historical fiction, mystery, or any other genre, these masterclasses will enable you to emulate Jane Austen’s proven techniques and improve your storytelling. This guide will also increase any reader’s appreciation for Austen’s craft.
552 pages, Paperback
Published December 2, 2025
About the author
Katherine Cowley
7 books239 followersKatherine Cowley read Pride and Prejudice for the first time when she was ten years old, which started a lifelong obsession with Jane Austen. Her debut novel, The Secret Life of Miss Mary Bennet, was nominated for the Mary Higgins Clark Award. The Mary Bennet spy series continues with the novels The True Confessions of a London Spy and The Lady’s Guide to Death and Deception.
Katherine loves history, chocolate, traveling, and playing the piano, and she has taught writing classes at Western Michigan University. She lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan with her husband and three daughters.
Katherine loves history, chocolate, traveling, and playing the piano, and she has taught writing classes at Western Michigan University. She lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan with her husband and three daughters.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 20, 2025
Incandescent! A stellar writing guide for writers of stripes and skews.
I’m such a fan of this text, as a writer, a student, a teacher, even as a rock-ribbed Janeite.
Folks who know me as an author or a teacher know that I'm a passionate (even obsessive) Austen fan, and Austen's impact on genre fiction (and even genre publishing) is more dramatic than most folks realize. Cowley's observations and analysis unpack that in loving detail for writers of all stripes. But this delicious slice of writing wisdom is something special...something _more_. She tackles thematic topics both common (e.g. Emotion, Setting, Dialogue, Style, etc) and singular (e.g. Stance, The Journey, Discovery, Distinction!) which also speaks to her craft chops and her ability to bring a fresh take to timeworn subjects.
Cowley PACKS this delightful tour-de-force with examples and exercises. Even the scale of the book is serious, rich with purpose and joyful intent; this is no slim KU money-grab for eager noobs looking to crank out a tacky potboiler, although it's far from "snooty" and genre- and media-agnostic. If you write, this book applies. Seeing the name Austen, a skeptical sod might expect something prim or fusty, but not a chance. Its canny lessons apply to writers of all experience, all genres, and all media. Moreover, the lessons of this book feel personal and potent, calibrated to elicit rich, fizzy results from all kinds of genre fictioneers.
This book is something seriously special.
Thing is, I've been a shameless craft book addict since I was a wee tadpole swimming in the slime of early writerdom. That also makes me impatient, prickly, and opinionated about saggy how-to guides that wallow in what I think of as the “callow regurgitation” camp: anodyne summaries and bland repackaging of the same 8 craft truisms we've all heard with metronomic frequency….the same advice in the same phrases with the same suggestions and bob’s yer uncle. No, thanks! Spare me with that twaddle.
Not here! Write with Jane Austen has much, much bigger fictional fish to fry. The book leans into unexpected skills and subtle upgrades that will improve any prose. Cowley has a deep enthusiasm for the rhetoric and music of fiction. By focusing everything through the lens of Austen, Cowley taps into something universal and effervescent in all great storytelling, a sense of verve and purpose, of warm empathy and ruthless intent that drives stories and compels fandoms. With the surgical joy of a rhetorician, she drills down and wanders wide…which lards the text with little epigrams and quiet chuckles tucked away for her students like heirloom gems.
Look: I write romance. Obviously an Austen-inspired craft guide is an easy lift and a primrose path for me to follow as a writer. The tools and jewels in this book seem tailor made for me. But to limit these craft lessons to romance or feminine/cozy genres is to minimize their efficacy and range. These exercises and truths apply just as easily to the weirdest cosmic horror and the grimmest noir. This book holds rich insights for biography, memoir, history, and other forms of nonfiction as well. Like Austen, Cowley knows that invariably, no matter the category, great stories are what pay the bills and pull the punters.
Oh and should I mention the literal beauty of the book itself? Cowley opted to use classic etchings from the Austen novels to illustrate her exercises, and often illuminate her points in a witty way. Again, an unnecessary but brilliant extra sprung from her love of craft and her readers.
Now, full disclosure: I supported the Write with Jane Austen project on Kickstarter, because I'm no fool. I'd been following Kathy Cowley's glorious Jane Austen Writing Lessons online as she blogged them. I've shared her craft challenges and pimped them for years to my colleagues, because of their humor and incisive clarity. The MOMENT I heard Cowley was writing a full nonfiction writing manual based on those phenomenal lessons, I sprinted to the Kickstarter and threw money at her so fast it probably arrived scorched. I felt compelled (half-agony, half-hope!). I'd already reaped so many rewards from her wit, insight, and precision as a writing teacher that I knew this text would stand apart... and it does, on so many levels.
This is a warm, jolly book I’ll be reading and revisiting for years…a hot cuppa I’ll never stop sipping with pleasure and curiosity. If you love Jane Austen you’ve already bought your hardcover copy (with accompanying workbook). LOL But If you write for a living or for fun and you haven’t bought your copy already, you’re bananas.
I’m such a fan of this text, as a writer, a student, a teacher, even as a rock-ribbed Janeite.
Folks who know me as an author or a teacher know that I'm a passionate (even obsessive) Austen fan, and Austen's impact on genre fiction (and even genre publishing) is more dramatic than most folks realize. Cowley's observations and analysis unpack that in loving detail for writers of all stripes. But this delicious slice of writing wisdom is something special...something _more_. She tackles thematic topics both common (e.g. Emotion, Setting, Dialogue, Style, etc) and singular (e.g. Stance, The Journey, Discovery, Distinction!) which also speaks to her craft chops and her ability to bring a fresh take to timeworn subjects.
Cowley PACKS this delightful tour-de-force with examples and exercises. Even the scale of the book is serious, rich with purpose and joyful intent; this is no slim KU money-grab for eager noobs looking to crank out a tacky potboiler, although it's far from "snooty" and genre- and media-agnostic. If you write, this book applies. Seeing the name Austen, a skeptical sod might expect something prim or fusty, but not a chance. Its canny lessons apply to writers of all experience, all genres, and all media. Moreover, the lessons of this book feel personal and potent, calibrated to elicit rich, fizzy results from all kinds of genre fictioneers.
This book is something seriously special.
Thing is, I've been a shameless craft book addict since I was a wee tadpole swimming in the slime of early writerdom. That also makes me impatient, prickly, and opinionated about saggy how-to guides that wallow in what I think of as the “callow regurgitation” camp: anodyne summaries and bland repackaging of the same 8 craft truisms we've all heard with metronomic frequency….the same advice in the same phrases with the same suggestions and bob’s yer uncle. No, thanks! Spare me with that twaddle.
Not here! Write with Jane Austen has much, much bigger fictional fish to fry. The book leans into unexpected skills and subtle upgrades that will improve any prose. Cowley has a deep enthusiasm for the rhetoric and music of fiction. By focusing everything through the lens of Austen, Cowley taps into something universal and effervescent in all great storytelling, a sense of verve and purpose, of warm empathy and ruthless intent that drives stories and compels fandoms. With the surgical joy of a rhetorician, she drills down and wanders wide…which lards the text with little epigrams and quiet chuckles tucked away for her students like heirloom gems.
Look: I write romance. Obviously an Austen-inspired craft guide is an easy lift and a primrose path for me to follow as a writer. The tools and jewels in this book seem tailor made for me. But to limit these craft lessons to romance or feminine/cozy genres is to minimize their efficacy and range. These exercises and truths apply just as easily to the weirdest cosmic horror and the grimmest noir. This book holds rich insights for biography, memoir, history, and other forms of nonfiction as well. Like Austen, Cowley knows that invariably, no matter the category, great stories are what pay the bills and pull the punters.
Oh and should I mention the literal beauty of the book itself? Cowley opted to use classic etchings from the Austen novels to illustrate her exercises, and often illuminate her points in a witty way. Again, an unnecessary but brilliant extra sprung from her love of craft and her readers.
Now, full disclosure: I supported the Write with Jane Austen project on Kickstarter, because I'm no fool. I'd been following Kathy Cowley's glorious Jane Austen Writing Lessons online as she blogged them. I've shared her craft challenges and pimped them for years to my colleagues, because of their humor and incisive clarity. The MOMENT I heard Cowley was writing a full nonfiction writing manual based on those phenomenal lessons, I sprinted to the Kickstarter and threw money at her so fast it probably arrived scorched. I felt compelled (half-agony, half-hope!). I'd already reaped so many rewards from her wit, insight, and precision as a writing teacher that I knew this text would stand apart... and it does, on so many levels.
This is a warm, jolly book I’ll be reading and revisiting for years…a hot cuppa I’ll never stop sipping with pleasure and curiosity. If you love Jane Austen you’ve already bought your hardcover copy (with accompanying workbook). LOL But If you write for a living or for fun and you haven’t bought your copy already, you’re bananas.
December 12, 2025
Write with Jane Austen found the sweet spot between basics and new information on writing. Pinpointing underlying writing principles, it then takes them a step further which made my brain go ping-ping-ping! It’s also an engaging read (coming from a non-nonfiction-lover). Cowley understands Austen remarkably well and is able to present The Master's skills in a palatable way for the rest of us. I highly recommend this book.
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