The Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA) is dedicated to the enjoyment and appreciation of Jane Austen and her writing. JASNA is a nonprofit organization, staffed by volunteers, whose mission is to foster among the widest number of readers the study, appreciation, and understanding of Jane Austen’s works, her life, and her genius. We have over 5,000 members of all ages and from diverse walks of life. Although most live in the United States or Canada, we also have members in more than a dozen other countries.

JASNA conducts an annual student Essay Contest to promote the study and appreciation of Jane Austen’s writing in new generations of readers. Students worldwide are invited to compete for scholarship awards.

2023 Contest Topic: Marriages and Proposals(求婚)

The 2023 Essay Contest topic is inspired by the theme of our upcoming Annual General Meeting: Pride and Prejudice.

Submissions

The deadline for submissions is Thursday, June 1, 2023. We will begin accepting submissions in February 2023.

Essay Contest Awards

First Place: $1, 000 scholarship, plus free registration and two nights’ lodging (住宿) for JASNA’s 2023 Annual General Meeting in Denver.

Second Place: $500 scholarship.

Third Place: $250 scholarship.

Winners will also receive one year of membership in JASNA, publication of their essays on this website, and a set of Norton Critical Editions of Jane Austen’s novels.

Essay Format

Entries that do not follow the following requirements or arrive after the deadline will be disqualified.

·The essay must be written in English.

·The title of the essay should appear at the top of page one; further pages should be numbered on the top right; the student’s name must not appear on the essay.

·The essay must be 6-8 pages in length.

Weifang, Shandong province, will exempt(免除)senior middle school tuition fees for the third child in every family born after May 31, 2021, local officials announced on Tuesday at a news conference on optimizing policies encouraging families to have more children.

The tuition fee exemption is one of a series of measures released by the city to encourage the birthrate. Others include subsidies(补贴)for universal childcare services, house purchases and medical expenses for childbirth. The government is also optimizing pregnancy leave and encouraging employers to explore flexible working schedules for female workers.

The newly released measures have received a mixed response from the public with some welcoming the policy, while others say the tuition benefit is too little and too far off to make an impact. “Is the child able to study in a senior middle school if he or she didn’t pass the examination?” said one user mockingly on the Twitter-like platform Sina Weibo.

Cities in the province have been ramping up subsidies, and education and nursery care services to encourage families to have more children.

Shandong province, with a population of over 100 million people, in 2022 recorded its lowest birthrate since 1983. “To encourage the birthrate, the government need to pay attention to the needs of families with only one child instead of only providing subsidies for couples with two or three children. Whether young couples have a high willingness to have one more child depends mostly on their experience of raising the first child,” said Gao Ming, 35, a resident of Qingdao. She added that she didn’t want to have a second children, even if Qingdao took similar measures.

The hustle and bustle(喧嚣)of life, walking back and forth from the ideal to reality, and the inner confusion hidden behind a social mask-these daily experiences are recorded by Chinese youths in lines of poetry online. Recently, 124 Bilibili internet users shared their works in a poem collection.

One blogger on Xiaohongshu who goes by the nickname Gehuaren is one such poetry lover. The twenty-something girl not only writes poems as a form of entertainment in her spare time, but also improvises(即兴创作)poems for others at night markets in Yunnan. As a street-stall poet, Gehuaren often writes pieces of poetry quickly based on themes from customers. Once the poem has been completed, she refuses to change her work because she feels her poems reflect her first reaction. For her, everything in the world, no matter trivial or significant, can serve as her poetic inspiration. “A glass, a tree in the dawn or a person who once talked with me…these all could become themes for my poems,” said Gehuaren.

With free writing with a regular rhythm and broad themes, her poems strike a chord with many young people online, helping her gain over 190, 000 followers. Many have made comments “I feel healed by your poems because I can find beauty from unnoticeable things and in turn, slow down to reflect on my life.”

Apart from poetry, various means such as vlogging and photosharing can be used to record moments of daily life. But young people consider poetry to be the best way to express them. “Taking photos or vlogging can just show the object or emotions in real life. Yet poetry, which can be used to excite the imagination, shows the beauty of daily life, ”an 18-year-old said. So when he is inspired by the beauty of daily life, the boy writes it down into lines of poetry and then shares them with his friends on his WeChat Moments.

No matter why young people write their unique brand of poems, they are attempting to take every moment in lives seriously, face their lives bravely and actively express themselves.

In the office of remote sensing scientist Liu Shaochuang, there is a huge photograph of a camel he snapped a decade ago in Xinjiang. He crouched for hours by a pool of water in the Gobi Desert to capture the image.

Since 2012, he has led a team in tracking and studying wild camels using satellite remote sensing technology.

Unlike zoologists who focus on species, Liu has studied the interrelationship between endangered animals and their environment, which he believes will help develop better protection strategies in the face of climate change.

His interest in wild camels began when his team tested a prototype(雏形)design of the lunar rover Yutu in the desert. Living in the harsh deserts in northwestern China and southwestern Mongolia, camels are listed as critically endangered animals. Experts estimate that the population of this species is currently less than 1, 000, of which around 650 are in China.

“Ten years ago, the research relied solely on human observation, which was very primitive, ”Liu says. Because camels are fully migratory and can travel over long distances, scientists used to learn their habits by studying hoof prints and droppings. It was hard to find one camel in the desert, let alone track it. But Liu thought his expertise in satellite navigation(导航)and remote sensing might come in useful in the study of wild camels.

It was not easy at first. Liu learned zoology from scratch. His team had to spend several weeks each year braving dust and sandstorms in the vastness of the Gobi Desert seeking out camels. A scar on his right eyebrow is the result of a rollover accident on a rugged mountain road in Xinjiang.

“The most exciting moment was attaching a satellite positioning collar to a wild camel. ”The tracking collar, equipped with special receivers, weighs only a few hundred grams. It can detach automatically and will not have a negative impact on the daily lives of the animals. The locations of the tracked animals are transmitted via satellite every day. Based on the data, scientists can get to know their migratory paths, living environments and possible threats they may meet with.

For Liu, it is worth the significant sci-tech effort to study such a rare species. He adds wildlife protection and research will become more precise and efficient with the help of technology.