Hello kindred spirits! We’re back with another episode of the MaudCast, the podcast of the Lucy Maud Montgomery Institute. And today, we’re talking about the Conference.
Allison Hudson and Caroline Jones are two of the organizers of the next biennial L.M. Montgomery Institute conference (that’s every two years, not “biannual” as twice a year, like I say in the episode). LMMI26 is here in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, June 24-28, 2026—home for me, but a long-sought destination for many. The Montgomery conference is a highlight for so many artists, scholars, librarians, Montgomery community members, and avid readers of her work.
In this episode, we catch up on “the news”–my Island grandmother’s polite word for gossip–share some fond memories of past conferences, and give some hints about what’s to come.
Dr. Allison McBain Hudson is the current Visiting Scholar at the L.M. Montgomery Institute—or the LMMI, as we call it. Her Ph.D. from Dublin City University is on the significance of material culture in Montgomery’s novels, and in the episode, we talk about what “material culture studies” really means (you can hear my stumbling definition and Allison’s elegant correction). Originally from Alberta, Allison has lived in Ireland for nearly three decades, where she quilts, sews, walks dogs, and has two daughters with her husband, an Irish artist—which I’m sure has its own adventures! Allison is one of the keynote speakers at the conference, and a past contributor to A Pilgrim in Narnia (see her review of The Faithful Imagination). As a bonus, you can check out more about her work on “material culture” in a season 2 MaudCast.
Dr. Caroline E. Jones is a past LMMI Visiting Scholar and has published a host of essay anthologies and scholarly papers. Every time I hear Caroline give a talk, I am amazed by her creative mind. In this episode, we’ll find out more about her research, which, like Allison’s, looks more closely at Montgomery’s Emily of New Moon trilogy. Formerly a bookseller and full-time academic, Caroline currently works as an editor in Austin, Texas, USA. Caroline also has a credit here on A Pilgrim in Narnia as a moderator of an online panel discussing Emily of New Moon on its 100th birthday.
This episode brings together three countries—Dublin, Ireland, Prince Edward Island, Canada, and Texas, USA—Montgomery friends in conversation, even when there is an ocean and a continent in between. We hope you enjoy the episode—including the news that the most powerful Anne of my childhood, Megan Follows, will give a keynote talk (and I’m responding to her audiobook reading of Emily of New Moon here). To find out more about the June conference and our guests, check out this link. Local and online registration is open. More to come!
Farewell, Brenton (MaudCast Host)
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Thank you (all) for this! I’m sure I can’t make it to PEI in a fortnight, and am shy of online conferring (other than via blog comments!), but this is a good spur to complete my acquaintance with the Emily trilogy, soon (after how absurdly long a pause since I enjoyed Emily Climbs?).
With good wishes to each and all, midsummerabouts!
Just finished chapter 11, and wow is it good! And wow is chapter 9 a grand and delightful display of “the significance of material culture” in this of her novels!
The beginning of chapter 1 had me comparing Giuseppe Pezzini’s Tolkien and the Mystery of Literary Creation.
And in the current ‘UFO’ livelinesses to read of “wonderful tales about that star—and of a life you had lived in it before you came to this world” – !
Again, al good wishes for the Conference.
Chapter 17 of Emily’s Quest has me wondering if “19–” is before the Russo-Japanese War.
One thing and another has reminded me of Barbara Pym’s novels – wild to think Some Tame Gazelle was written only 8 years after Emily’s Quest was finished and published.
Brenton, any news on when your book is out?
Dana
Emily’s Quest, chapter 13: Exchange between Emily and Ilse about Lucrezia Borgia:
“Who was an excellent and rather stupid woman beloved for her good works.”
“Oh, I know the modern whitewashers are determined to rob history of anything that is picturesque”.
I don’t know what Emily’s sources were, but today, enjoying Mandell Creighton’s History of the Papacy from the Great Schism to the Sack of Rome, Volume V (London, New York, Bombay: Longmans, “New Edition in Six Volumes”, “New Impression”, 1903; chapter 10, pages 23-24), I encountered this in the account of her third wedding (in January 1502):
“Lucrezia, who was still only twenty-two years old, was personally popular through her beauty and her affability. Her long golden hair, her sweet childish face, her pleasant expression and her graceful ways, seem to have struck all who saw her. Much as her husband disliked the notion of his marriage, he was soon won over by his wife, and Lucrezia lived a blameless life at Ferrara. However unhappy she may have been in her early days as the puppet of her father’s political schemes, she found in Ferrara a peaceful home. She seems to have inherited her father’s frank and joyous nature, but she was in no way remarkable. If Alexander VI. hoped that she would become a political personage, he was disappointed. She showed no aptitude in that direction; but she seems to have been a good wife to Alfonso. When the power of Alexander VI. and Cesare came to an end, Alfonso of Ferrara did not try to rid himself of the wife who had been forced upon him. She died in 1519, regretted by her husband, and on her deathbed wrote to Pope Leo X., begging for his benediction before she died.[footnote 1] The evil repute of her father and brother fell upon her in later days, and in her own time the tongue of scandal associated her name with shameless charges. But from the time that she left Rome no voice was raised against her; and there are no facts proved which tend to her discredit. Romance has busied itself with her life and has converted Lucrezia Borgia into a heroine of unmentionable wickedness.”
Footnote 1: “The facts about Lucrezia Borgia are given by Gregorovius. As I have rejected all uncorroborated rumours, I need not consider the special accusations against Lucrezia.”
What a very cool background piece, David! I love the books that we find inside other books
You must be done by now, how did it go?
Whoops! Just catching up: it went very well – I thoroughly enjoyed it! Wow, cliff-hangerish to the last moment, too! Both very LMM and at the same time distinctly different from anything else of hers I’ve read.