Member DeborahYaffe

Deborah Yaffe, the author of Among the Janeites: A Journey Through the World of Jane Austen Fandom, has been a passionate Jane Austen fan since first reading Pride and Prejudice at age ten. She joined the Jane Austen Society of North America at sixteen; owns an impressive collection of Austen-themed coffee mugs, bookmarks, tote bags and DVDs; and spends way too much time hanging around the Republic of Pemberley (www.pemberley.com) arguing over whether Anne Elliot or Captain Wentworth is more to blame for their eight-year estrangement.

As a newspaper reporter in New Jersey and California for more than thirteen years, Yaffe covered education, the law, and state government. Her first book, Other People’s Children: The Battle for Justice and Equality in New Jersey’s Schools, initially supported with a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities, is a gripping narrative history of the state’s efforts to provide equal educational opportunities to rich and poor schoolchildren.

Yaffe holds a bachelor’s degree in humanities from Yale University and a master’s degree in politics, philosophy, and economics from Oxford University in England, which she attended on a Marshall Scholarship. She works as a freelance writer and lives in central New Jersey with her husband, her two children, and her Jane Austen Action Figure.

Follow her on Twitter (@DeborahYaffe); visit her website, www.deborahyaffe.com; and drop by the Among the Janeites Facebook page (www.facebook.com/amongthejaneites).

Photo credit: Randall Hagadorn, Titusville, NJ