Lakesiders Traci Richards and Brenda Haas will discuss author Jane Austen’s classic themes of social status, reputation, love and marriage through the eyes of the women writers that made up Austen’s own bookshelf and who influenced her writing. Includes a review of Rebecca Romney’s Jane Austen’s Bookshelf, and those in attendance will participate in a discussion of Austen and her works.
Richards is the owner of Millie Magoo’s & The Fine Print bookstore in Lakeside. Haas lives in Lakeside, the setting for her debut novel, Finding Sutton’s Choice. The story about complicated family relationships and failing mental health won the Literary Titan Gold Book Award (2025), two International Impact Book Awards (2025) and the PenCraft Award for Fiction (2026).
A magazine feature writer, speaker and photographer, Haas spent many years as a reporter for a suburban Pittsburgh newspaper. Her writing has appeared in Leisure Living Magazine, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and My Outer Banks Home magazine.
