It’s hard to know where to begin when discussing Jo March and Anne Shirley, both of whom have transcended their original stories to become cultural icons. When it comes to these characters and to Louisa May Alcott’s and LM Montgomery’s writing as a whole, something undefinable happens. Their tales of ordinary women, in being faithful to ordinary women, become extraordinary.  They hit women where they live. This results in personal, cultural impacts with a breadth hard to discuss. Jo March has inspired so many women authors that one book on Little Women’s influence has nearly 7 full pages simply quoting female authors on being inspired by Jo March, from Ursula LeGuin to bell hooks. Anne of Green Gables became a global sensation so widely beloved that PEI is still a tourist hot spot, and everyone from Mark Twain to Aretha Franklin has expressed a deep love for Anne. The influence of both of these novels is so profound they’ve literally been used by nations in war strategies.

I could go on—but the point is, something fundamental exists in these texts about sisters and kindred spirits. Something so fundamental they’ve inspired debutantes in the late 1800s and the flappers of the 1920s and Rosie the riveters during WW2 and feminists during the 70s; whether liked or hated, they’re discussed. Their specific settings of life in the late 1800s on PEI or east cost US has spoken across countries, centur(ies), and generations. The characters strike women so deeply their reach expands past geographic, cultural, and generational boundaries. Ultimately, they make women feel seen.

In striking to the heart, however, they also hit exposed nerves. Should Jo have gotten together with Laurie? Why didn’t Lousia May Alcott commit to the solid gold dynamic? Actually, should Jo have gotten with anyone at all? Is Alcott pushing back against romanticization but not marriage? Is Jo queer? Did Jo surrender her career for conformation to society? What about Anne’s queer vibes? What about Anne sacrificing her ambition to be a mother? Can these texts escape their broader cultural connotation of happiness in conformity? Is romance even conformity or is it realism? Might the specific romance portrayed be relevant to whether it can be generalized to these statements?

I bring all of this up--as you may guess—because in my opinion, I’m observing the same phenomenon happening with Mel King on the Pitt. Her character has a similar tone and arc to a Louisa May Alcott or LM Montgomery novel; Mel has the earnestness and whimsy balanced with uncertainty and loneliness that makes her feel so real to the audience. We can fall back on the same words that have been said so many times about Jo March, about Anne Shirley, about Meg or Amy or Emily Starr or so many other Alcott and Montgomery characters: “She makes me feel seen.”

Much like with Jo and Anne, the very elements that makes Mel King such a powerful character, however, are also driving the controversy around her. Should she get together with Langdon? Why aren’t the creators committing to the solid gold dynamic? Actually, why should she have to get together with anyone at all? Are people really reducing her to a ship? She has an incredible career ahead of her!! Wait, doesn’t she have queer vibes? She is clearly a girl kisser, she's is clearly ace, she's--.

To cut to the chase in order to begin the marathon, I think all of these interpretations have a reasonable amount of textual support. Although some analyses stretch rather hard, the basic bones of all of these interpretations are there. Significantly, I’d even say some of these reads exist because of media predecessors—like Little Women and AOGG.

Arguing for any one of these is not the point of this essay. What I want to do is really delve into the contrasts between these characters and works. My point is that Mel King really could be an LM Montgomery or Alcott character, and in being so similar, can strike to the core--and enter the heart of long-standing discussions to which there are no easy answers. These women are too well-written for that. Personally speaking, I hadn’t realized how much I missed female characters like that, whom I’d grown up reading about, until one was back in front of me. So I want to talk about it!

This essay is going to cover similar themes in these character arcs and try to connect it to the broader cultural conversation surrounding all of the characters, because it is SO similar!! There are so many parallels here! Again, this will not try to argue for one interpretation over the other, but I am going to give all popular interpretations credence. In other words: I like that Jo ended up with Bhaer, and I don’t ship Mel and Langdon, but I am going to point out how it’s not a stretch to see Jo/Laurie and Mel/Langdon in the stories or to believe that should be the arc.

Broadly, themes include: earnestness, imagination sisterhood, loneliness, queer identities, male-female friendships and romances, and cultural impact. Note that this is a far from comprehensive list – I think there are so many similarities it’s truly hard for me to comprehend them all. (You have to understand, in my head this essay is a fan edit of clips from all three stories interspersed with relevant quotes and set to about you by the 1975).

Earnestness and Imagination

How to state the obvious?

I think one reason Mel King is so popular is that based on my impression, characters like her can be scarce on the ground these days. Self plagiarizing a little, but there’s a very down to earth, whimsical quality to Alcott's and LMM’s women on the page that doesn’t play well with the more sardonic nature of media today. There’s an earnestness present in the characters that I personally feel rings very true to the experiences of a lot of women but isn't always done very well, if it at all. Earnestness can often be flattened into naivete, and simplicity into one dimensional dullness.

Anne, Jo, and Mel are all earnest but not naive. To paraphrase Mr. Rogers, "simple and deep is far more interesting than shallow and complex." I think here lies the heart of these characters' power. They show the depth of earnestness without shying away from life's hardships and traumas. That can be uplifting, stark, and raw. It's earnestness without naivete, and grief without cynicism. I think that's an experience a lot of women can relate to or be inspired by.

--Anne's House of Dreams, after the death of Anne's infant daughter

Anne, Jo, and Mel experience an “otherness” because they have a different way of seeing the world compared to the people around them. Importantly, Anne and Jo, like Mel, have a sense of something greater than themselves which informs their empathy and perspectives. Louisa May Alcott’s and LM Montgomery’s works both emphasize the reality of the good—in other words, they are not at all cynical (at first). They celebrate the beauty in ordinary circumstances. You might be an abused orphan, or a gaggle of slightly impoverished sisters whose father is away at war, or a young orphaned doctor who cares for her sister while reckoning with the violence of the world every day—but you’ll still take a moment to relish the small things. Anne does so more romantically (“White Way of Delight”, “I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers”), Jo more fiercely (she goes through life “elbows out”), and Mel practically (lava lamps! Music! Sisterhood!). They all take joy in the little things.

They also do so imaginatively. Anne's famous for this, and Jo is a writer. Mel hasn't had the chance to show this to the same degree, but we have the ren fair line (which "used to enjoy" implies a loss of identity! imagination is important!)

Importantly—significantly—essentially—vitally—I will shout this from the rooftops—I will proclaim it in the streets—despite their tone, all of these characters are still realistic about life’s tragedies. Their imagination is as much a form of escapism as it is creativity. As said above: EARNESTNESS IS NOT SENTIMENTALISM OR NAIVETE. SENSITIVITY IS NOT WEAKNESS. I am not impressed by analyses that describe these works as saccharine. Anne was abused and went hungry as a child. Jo loses Beth. Although the saccharine accusations don’t really apply to the Pitt, I’ll point out how the show displays both feel-good/hope moments and cynicism. I smile at the Mel is 3 apples tall meme, but I think it undercuts her strength in a way. The key is not that these characters don’t experience horrible things; the key is in how they respond to the horrible things they experience.

As I’ve written in the past: one thing I love about Anne Shirley is how this poor, starved, abused little orphan girl took a look at the misery and squalor of her surroundings and went, no, I'm going to deliberately and fiercely choose to see the beauty in everything. That's courage. (Also, notably, beyond Anne, other works of LM Montgomery also reckon with harder subjects while sticking to the more earnest tenor—Emily of New Moon literally features a predator with undertones of pedophilia, who represents patriarchal threats to women’s ambition.) Mel King encounters abuse and violence every day, while still keeping her “unicorn and rainbows” tenor; a bloodstained Mel grimly goes to work during an MCI only to laugh with joy while holding a baby a few hours later.

This is why I dislike the reduction of characters like these to sentimentalism or cute or feel-good, saccharine stories. It’s not saccharine—it’s grit. These women have grit. With that grit comes depth. It doesn't ignore life's tragedies, but focuses on the tension between the joy and the grief. These stories all acknowledge how the characters can get ground down by life. Mel’s entire arc in season 2 focuses on this; we have Jo’s speech in Little Women 2019 (which is cobbled from different Alcott works, not just Little Women); and although it may surprise you, most cynically of all, Anne Shirley, whose final bitter words in her series are that she is glad her son died in WW1 because WW2 rendered his sacrifice so pointless.

Overall, although assuredly much bleaker, the Pitt unites the tragicomedy of life in the same way Alcott and Montgomery do, holding space for both. In Mel particularly we see the whimsy that underpins the other works. That whimsy does not preclude depth or tragedy; it’s the combination that makes it so powerful. Especially potent is when this whimsy and imagination is combined with…loneliness.

Loneliness, Uncertainty, and Place

“Many characters in Montgomery’s novels live with a profound sense of isolation.” -Sarah Mesle

“…it is sometimes a little lonely to be surrounded everywhere by happiness that is not your own.”  - Anne of the Island

The themes of isolation and home are so prevalent in LM Montgomery’s work they have literal bodies of academic work dedicated to them. After all, her heroines are marked by place—it’s Anne of Green Gables, not Anne Shirley. Whether Anne or Emily or Valancy or Jane, LM Montgomery’s characters focus on finding place—their home. Anne is an orphan who comes to a strange town, and its citizens find her kooky but charming. Anne is so lonely she talks to her own reflection in the window (to herself, one might say, because no one is listening…) Jo March also struggles with her place in the world and this is further intersected with her relationship to her gender (which we’ll get to later).

So then we come to Mel, and honestly, I don’t know where to begin. Mel struggles to connect with people; Mel is an open book and yet no one understands her; Mel has no support network; Mel has been alone except for Becca for a long time; Mel knows what it’s like to feel alone in a crowded room. Mel’s arc in season 2 can be summed up as Mel losing her place. Mel’s place is less about a physical location, albeit intrinsically related to the single setting of the Pitt ER, and more about her identity – her identity as a good doctor, as a caretaker. This is in contrast to her sister, Becca, who has started building a life that Mel feels on the outside of. We even have Mel saying this explicitly. Mel is isolated, and she needs to find her place (home).  

We don’t know enough of Mel’s arc to know where this leads, but the similarities here are self-evident. To be Frank, I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface here. When it comes to the magic of these characters, it’s hard to isolate one thing as the reason why they've gone bone deep with so many women, but this has to be near the top. With loneliness comes uncertainty, and with uncertainty awkwardness, and awkwardness can make being seen difficult to experience. That's major feature of all three arcs - finding people who see you.

This is woven with themes of sisterhood and otherness, or, in some ways, having people who see you leave you. Sisterhood could be its own section in this essay, but suffice to say, Mel and Becca have each other, but they are not enough for each other; Jo and her sisters have each other, but there are actual deaths and (you could argue) symbolic deaths in the form of marriage.

Regardless of what the Pitt might do with Mel, we do know where Jo and Anne’s arcs lead—to community. Anne finds her community of friends and family in Avonlea, and Jo falls back to her sisters and mother and the ever expanding network of husbands and niblings. Their arcs would not exist without these other characters. I think it significant that despite Anne finding her community in AOGG, a lot of these people never really understand her. They just take the time to try, and to love her anyway. Similar with Jo – she and her sisters butt heads all the time, and her sisters despair of her, and boy do they fight, but in the end the love is there.

However, in the end, Jo’s sisters somewhat leave her behind, just like Mel feels left behind by Becca. Both Jo and Mel challenge the heteronormative setup of society. Interestingly, this is nodded to in Anne’s books (see above quote), but Montgomery’s focus on female friendship is so strong throughout those novels you never get the sense Anne is ever in any real danger of being alone. Anne even jokes about being the fun single aunt at one point, quite cheerfully!  

I say this because I think it’s essential to recognize this before delving into the next section. Here is where we get to the more controversial, juicy side of these arcs. How do these women resolve their loneliness? How do they find their place in a world that doesn’t seem built for them? Should they balance life’s demands, or a career’s demands, without help? What does that help look like, realistically?

What role do men and romance have to play here?

Prominent Male Figures & Deconstructed Romantic Tropes

“…letters poured in with demands to know what would happen to the four March girls, or most importantly, whom they would marry, “as if that was the only end and aim of a woman’s life,” [Alcott] grumbled.” – Anne Rioux

Anne of Green Gables “…helps to orchestrate a book-length, comic deconstruction and reconstruction of romance…the whole of Anne of Green Gables plays with romance.” – Elizabeth Epperly

“Anne Shirley rebels, but only up to a point.” – Epperly

I deliberately did not use the term romantic relationships in this title, because regardless of the nature of the relationship, all three women have one (1) man who plays a prominent role in their arc. Anne has Gilbert; Jo has Laurie; and Mel has Langdon. All three of these deconstruct classic romantic arcs. Jo rejects Laurie; Anne's entire arc focuses on inverting Anne's unrealistic ideas of romance; Mel and Langdon brush up against about a thousand foundational romantic tropes without ever crossing that gap. All three of these relationships also have a maelstorm of controversy surrounding them. To help divide the two, I'm going to try to split this section between the Watsonian and Doylist viewpoints, looking at the canon relationships and then examining the controversy around the choices the authors made with those relationships that still continues today.

Watsonian Viewpoint

I think enough ink has been spilled on Jo and Laurie's relationship. Suffice to say, Jo finds a close friend in Laurie, everyone expects them to get together, and this does not happen. I was going to add some images here but i'm getting close to the image limit. 😠 If you look at the way the relationship is portrayed on screen, however, it has the same casual intimacy that defines the other two. The book takes a situation that would be written romantically 99% of the time, and says: no.

Anne and Gilbert parallel Jo and Laurie, with a few key caveats. If you haven’t read AOGG, it may surprise you to learn that Gilbert is barely in it. It’s as the series progresses that he plays a more prominent role, and in doing so, Anne narratively transforms from a scrappy orphan who questions everything to somewhat embracing traditional roles.

However, as mentioned above, AOGG does so in a way I would describe as distinct from a more traditional romance novel; it mocks the romantic tropes more so than fulfilling them, although it does fulfill them in the end. Gilbert and Anne become friends, this friendship evolves to him falling in unrequited love, Anne rejects his proposal much like Jo rejects Laurie's, but he and Anne actually get together in the end as suits Anne's arc. What's different is that Anne fully expects a knight in shining armor, only to find romance to be an old friend. A major theme of Anne is her confronting her romanticization of events versus reality. Rather than a hero sweeping her off her feet, she deals with annoying unwanted romantic attention and partners who are good on paper but just not the right fit, and horribly awkward meet-the-family situations. Awkward is ultimately the name of the game when it comes to dating, LM Montgomery slyly points out. Maybe romance novels aren't right on so many things after all.

So, what about Mel and Langdon?

I must preface this section by saying I am not trying to hate on anybody (i have read kingdon fic in my day) and ya’ll can feel free to dunk on me for my opinions because they do get a little nuclear—I am going to insert more of my own personal opinions on interpretations here.

Mel and Langdon hit a lot of the same relationship beats as the other two. They are good friends, and Langdon arguably sees Mel at a depth that the other people around her do not. At the least, he is willing to try. Additionally, similar to both Laurie and Gilbert who are impressed by Jo and Anne being better than them, not threatened, Langdon learns from Mel. These friendships can even improve the female character's abilities. I know Bhaer (who is not Laurie, but is the romantic figure for Jo) helps her with her writing; Gilbert sharpens Anne's intelligence; and Langdon mentors Mel and supports her. It really comes down to that word: support.

Like Gilbert, Langdon learns from Mel while allowing her to reach her full potential. However, here's where I have to pull in a few random LM Montgomery characters because reducing Langdon to just the "wholesome male friend/potential love interest" does not accurately represent his character. He is proud, lies to Mel, and is fairly self-absorbed. You could argue that he likes Mel but he likes how Mel makes him feel about himself more--or that he likes how Mel makes him feel about himself but he likes Mel more! That's highly open to interpretation! I do think there's enough textual evidence (the fact that he's pretty desperate for Mel to believe he's still a good doctor to the point of lying, while still admitting that she deserved better) to support either way.

This is going to interest about three people, so if you don't know Dean Priest, ignore this paragraph, but LM Montgomery actually delves into relationships like this as well. While I do not think Langdon is a Dean Priest, LM Montgomery absolutely examines proud men who nurture women's talent while being simultaneously threatened by it. Weirdly, in this example LM Montgomery is darker than the Pitt! While I hardly think Mel and Langdon's relationship has ominous undertones, it does have a few cracks that people ignore.

To self-plagiarize again, how Mel and Langdon feel towards each other is a matter subject to great interpretation, but the fact that they occupy a place of importance for each other is inarguable. You could read Mel as having a crush on Langdon, although I don’t personally. Mel sees the best in (and the best of) Langdon, which further brings out his best, but also caters to his ego, his weak point. Langdon understands and supports Mel like no one else does, which she needs a little too desperately because no one else does. These are foundational romantic tropes: grumpy x sunshine, asshole to everyone except heroine, you see me when I’m invisible, but they’re also foundational cracks.

To me, this parallels Jo and Laurie even further--it dances with the romantic tropes but ultimately breaks hold in the name of male-female friendship. Meanwhile, Anne and Gilbert dance with the romance tropes and fulfill them, if tripping over their own feet, in the name of friends to lovers. I find it interesting how Mel and Langdon sit on an axis between these, and I'd add the third dimension of proud male mentor above that appears elsewhere in LMM's work. Where it will go, who knows, but given its predecessors it's likely to cause a firestorm.

Doylist Viewpoint

One debate that has haunted all discussions of Jo March and Anne Shirley—that has dogged goodreads reviews and academic discussion and feminist debates—is the fact that their arcs end with marriage, and what that implies. Is it conformity? Is it falling back on christening marriage as the end-all be-all for women? Especially for these women, who challenged norms and had ambitions they gave up?? Or is acting like it has to be a choice at all a false dichotomy?

Basically, at the locus of this debate is (1) male and female friendship being read as romantic (2) romance/nuclear families presented as the solution to loneliness and as the ultimate “place” and, I would add (3) the influence of cultural contexts in determining the message of a storyline.  Sound familiar?

These debates have lasted well over a century at this point. I’m sure you don’t need me to point out the parallels to Mel here. What fascinates me is that the flames of these controversies were fanned by the wider cultural context; ie, the flappers in the 1920s were a lot more dismissive of Jo March’s marriage than the audience today, who seems to think she can have both. In Little Women 2019, this is a prominent theme. We have Jo’s famous speech above, and the ending chooses to be nebulous! You could read Jo choosing writing, Jo choosing both, Jo getting married.

Also important here is Laurie vs Bhaer, in which Alcott deliberately rejects the set up for Jo/Laurie and pairs Jo with someone else in what you could see as a true troll move. She pushes back on romanticization of male/female friendships in doing so; however, she still marries Jo off.

Anne is less controversial; however, as seen in the quotes above, her arc has been questioned. If you don't believe me, read the goodreads reviews for Anne of Ingleside. More than one expresses disappointment in Anne Shirley as a wife and mother. Personally I disagree for reasons I won't get into here and fall more along the lines of why does it have to a choice, but the larger connotation of conformity / reducing a woman's arc to a man is impossible to ignore here. On the other hand, some of the arguments run the risk of demeaning women who choose to get married.

I mention that because I see this same tension in the response to Mel and Langdon. Essentially, the huge shipping culture around Mel echoes the romanticization around Little Women that Alcott complained about (and fought back against, really), and that LM Montgomery lampooned in Anne.

The shipping I see kind of falls on those exaggerated romantic tropes that aren’t really realistic for the genre (or at all). It’s more similar to Anne’s daydreams more so than anything. For example, I often see people pointing out how Langdon looks at Mel and compare him to Anthony Bridgerton, who is literally the romantic hero in a bodice-ripper romance of all romances. I find this totally unconvincing. Context is key, genre and character wise. Langdon, to be blunt, looks that way at everyone. See sample:

We'll return to that in a bit. Touching back on the validity of romance arcs, I do think one element that is essential to remember when discussing this is that both Alcott and Montgomery wrote relationships in which the husbands support their wives’ creativity and ambitions. This is especially marked in Montgomery, who, if you didn’t know, was married to a giant man baby very threatened by his wife’s success (I editorialize.) This raises an interesting wrinkle in the career vs. romance debate, albeit not the "marriage as the capstone" argument. Does this earn a more traditional ending? Is it still reducing a woman's arc to a man? Or it possible to have both? That answer is going to be deeply personal.

Similar questions dog any potential romantic arc with Mel and Langdon. Why wouldn’t this special attention be romantic? Why must it be? To be clear, I don’t know if the show is going that way (although I could easily be wrong given how shows pole vault over sharks these days, not that Kingdon would necessarily be that), but in my opinion, although a lot of the shipping exaggerates what’s there…some of it doesn’t. And some of that is thanks to previous stories like Little Women/AOGG that have framed relationships like this! Exhibit:

Of course platonic explanations exist for this! But Kingdon bumps up against some fundamental romantic tropes, and so despite all the hullabaloo complaining otherwise, the leap to romance isn’t so much a leap as a nudge. Would that be a satisfying arc or a basic one? Whomst can say!

I haven’t even covered all of the questions here. One big, looming question for Mel is how she’s going to navigate getting a support system in a world where that system is assumed to be your biological family. Would a romance arc be a cop out for this? Is it possible to write a realistic non-tragic conclusion to this that’s cathartic without romantic partnership? Is the pitt even going to try to do that? I don’t know!

Especially looming is another reading of this that has followed Jo, Anne, and Mel, either directly or indirectly—which are the queer themes in their storylines.

Queer Themes

“It’s about Diana,” sobbed Anne luxuriously. “I love Diana so, Marilla. I cannot ever live without her. But I know very well when we grow up that Diana will get married and go away and leave me. And oh, what shall I do? I hate her husband—I just hate him furiously. I’ve been imagining it all out—the wedding and everything—Diana dressed in snowy garments, with a veil, and looking as beautiful and regal as a queen; and me the bridesmaid, with a lovely dress too, and puffed sleeves, but with a breaking heart hid beneath my smiling face. And then bidding Diana goodbye-e-e—” Here Anne broke down entirely and wept with increasing bitterness. - AOGG

(no more image room but just know i would include Mellis images if tumblr would let me 😤)

I’m cracking my knuckles here, because there are SO many behind the scenes fun facts for Jo and Anne. In the same way that you have this underlying element to Mel—the actress playing her as ace, even as the show shies from confirming it—you have those same underlying elements to Jo and Anne!

First of all, Louisa May Alcott. Jo is clearly based on Louisa May Alcott. Louisa May Alcott liked to call herself Jo! When not Joy, however, she went by Lou—a masculine nickname. Louisa “was happy to grow into adulthood without marrying.” She wrote “I’d rather be a free spinster and paddle my own canoe.”  As Rioux states, “She felt like the son or brother of the family. Many of the friends and relatives who wrote reminiscences of the Alcotts recall how much she acted like and wanted to be a boy.” As far as this impacts Jo, as mentioned above, her relationship with her gender plays into her "othered" experience and loneliness.

Thinking thoughts!! Thinking thoughts!!

Meanwhile, there’s Anne. And hoo boy. The quotes above really paint a picture. LM Montgomery, decidedly not queer and very homophobic, had a lot of queer themes in her work informed by her life experiences, most especially female friendship. The person she was closest to in life, imo her platonic soulmate, was a woman. When Anne of Green Gables was published, lesbians and queer women wrote to Montgomery saying they saw themselves in the work! LM Montgomery's work also frequently has older single women, sisters who live together until old age—her overwhelming focus on women in her stories means she covers a whole lotta territory, including some gray areas that read perhaps much less gray with a modern lens. Just look at Katherine Brooke, who appears in contrast to Anne and if we’re talking someone who is lonely and doesn’t fit heteronormative standards <insert mel talking about becca to dana gif here>…

“I'm...I'm like a creature caught in a trap. I can never get out...and it seems to me that somebody is always poking sticks at me through the bars. And you...you have more happiness than you know what to do with...friends everywhere, a lover! Not that I want a lover...I hate men...but if I died tonight, not one living soul would miss me.”

Meanwhile, Mel. Mel could easily, easily be read as queer. The actress herself has stated she plays Mel as ace, while leaving room for other directions for her character arc. Unlike with Jo and Anne, however, this could actually become canon.

-

Regardless of whether it does or not, it reflects the larger theme of these characters: women see themselves in them. Young women, old women, western women, eastern women, straight women, queer women, practical women, romantic women, single women, married women. These characters are a love letter. They're written by women who rose above the hardships and uglier parts of their lives to focus on creating extraordinary beauty in what could be seen as an act of defiance.

Louisa May Alcott and LM Montgomery

That leads me to the last part of this: how beloved these characters are.

Cultural Response

For this last part, I'm going to take a step back and give the stage to the women who love these characters. Below are snippets of media reactions, article headlines, quotes, all surrounding these characters. Please know these are a mere sampling.

Jo

Little Women has been called "the mother of all girls' books." As female readers discovering their ambitions gravitated toward the book, Jo March was the main draw. She has been called by Carolyn Heilbrun "the mother of us all," and by Elaine Showalter, "the dearly cherished sister of us all." As Ursula K. Le Guin describes it, Jo March was the original image of women writing, an image that Alcott made accessible to ordinary girls. As poet Sonja Sanchez has put it, "Jo broke the mold." "Jo was the model for my own aspirations," writes [Gail] Mazur. For [Lynne Sharon] Schwartz, reading and rereading Little Women was not enough; she wanted to "posses [it] even more intimatey" and so began "copying it into a notebook." For many, the identification with Jo was so strong they felt as if she had materialized within them or as if they had inhabited the text with her. "I, personally, am Jo March," Barbara Kingsolver has written. Maureen Corrigan not only identified with Jo but felt as if their lives had followed the same path. The Ephron sisters Nora and Delia both thought they were Jo. African American novelist Ann Petry...declared "I felt as though I was part of Jo and she was part of me." bell hooks writes that she felt "a little less alone in the world" after finding "remnants of myself in Jo, the serious sister, the one who is punished." Poet Elizabeth Alexander found Alcott's novel "formative." Vietnamese American writer Bich Minh Nguyen was similarly "inspired to be like Jo," and Candy Gourlay, a children's author from the Philippines who now lives in England, recalls her reading experience of Little Women as purely emotional, "an aligning of my desires with Jo's. How I wanted to be Jo." Perri Klass and Stacy Schiff both named their daughters after Jo. Peruvian American novelist Natalia Sylvester claims that Little Women "had an immeasurable influence on me. I wanted to be Jo, with her ink-stained hands and big dreams. I wanted to be the rebel storyteller." For Gloria Steinem, "Amy, Beth, Meg, and Jo--who was probably why I became a writer--were my family and friends." Patricia Henley got tears in her eyes as she explained what Jo had meant to her. "If Jo could grow up to be a writer, so could I." -Anne Rioux (edited from original text for presentation--many, many other female authors were quoted)

Anne

"I first read Anne of Green Gables to my grade 3 class in Vernon River. When we got to the chapter in which Matthew dies, we all sat still and quiet until one student said, “I didn’t know a teacher could cry.”' -Deirdre Kessler, a former Poet Laureate of P.E.I. 

"I was nine years old, home from school sick. My dad, on his way to work, stuck his head inside my bedroom door and said, “Here, try this.” He handed me a blue hardback of Anne of Green Gables. When he returned that night, I had finished it. For that whole day, I lived inside the skin of a different person. In a blur of astonishment and devastation, I learned that it was possible for a beloved fictional character to die. And I explicitly knew I was a different Margaret from the one who had woken up that morning. I remember my startled recognition, in so many words, that Thornton Burgess’s animal stories – hitherto completely satisfying – would never be quite the same again.  My life as a reader had suddenly and irrevocably expanded." -Margaret Mackey is Professor Emerita in the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Alberta

"You inspired my mother to be a writer, when she was a little girl in Texas; you inspired my father, in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, to see beauty all around. My little sister is named for your Anne. Every day I think about or read your work and try to imagine who you were within and between the lines. Thank you, thank you for giving me so many reasons and ways to read, to write, to connect with others, and to be." -Elizabeth Rollins Epperly

"On a recent spring day, I glanced out the window of my fourth-floor apartment and saw a flurry of white crab apple blossoms fluttering gracefully through the air, dancing upward on the wind. The whole urban landscape was transformed, and in that moment, I felt so thankful, not only for this glimpse of the wild nature of my city, but also for Montgomery and her nature-loving heroines, who taught me about Snow Queens and Wind Women and Flashes and how to live each day with eyes and heart and mind open to the beautiful surprises of the world around me. " -Tara Parmiter is a Clinical Professor of Expository Writing at New York University.

"Like so many of us, my introduction to L.M. Montgomery came in childhood, at a time when I read voraciously, so hungry for departure. Back then, I had no clear sense of myself as a lesbian, but I knew intuitively that something about me was strange and “different” – or, as Montgomery herself might have put it, “queer.” Because, at the time, there were so few novels for young readers with LGBTQ+ characters, I learned to find myself in other, less overt mirrors. It was in Montgomery’s books that I saw the clearest echoes of my own unarticulated desires... I’d like to think that she’d be able to understand my deep gratitude for the ways her work has always made me feel seen." -Katharine Slater

When I talk about loving Anne with dear friends who also love Anne, we are not advocating particular novels so much as we are describing...loving and being loved by your friends even when they don’t fully understand you, loving reading in the corner at a slumber party while everyone else watches TV, loving a long walk, loving, most of all, the ability to find a sense of place. What we are saying is that Anne was our wardrobe, our tornado — our portal to the capacity within ourselves to make the mundane world magical. - Sarah Mesle

"L.M. Montgomery has not just inspired my family; she has shaped it. My great-grandma Cora first read the books aloud to her students in a one-room schoolhouse. Her daughter, my grandma Penny, and her daughter, my mother Christy, spent countless family vacations tracking down old copies of Montgomery’s books. It is pretty easy to figure out where my name and my sister’s came from (Emily and Anne, naturally). Montgomery has inspired our travel, showed us the joy in unraveling historical puzzles, supplied countless treasured memories, and connected us to friends all over the world. We have studied, collected, honoured, researched, discussed, savoured and loved Montgomery’s works. And we’ve done it all together. We have learned that Montgomery’s legacy is not just literary; it is intergenerational and personal." -Emily Woster

Mel

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Let's Be Real, You Started Watching The Pitt for Dr. Robby and Stayed for Melissa King. And You Know What? Same.

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