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Let Genius Burn — History
Let Genius Burn

Louisa May Alcott may be best known for the beloved book Little Women, but her story doesn’t begin or end with her famous novel. On Let Genius Burn, we separate the layers of Louisa’s life to learn more about who she really was–and all the ways her legacy continues to resonate today. We’ll explore the traumatic year of her childhood spent in an experimental utopian community, her service as a Civil War nurse, her final years of wealth and celebrity as a children’s author–and more intimate details and little-known stories of Louisa’s life. Instead of a retelling of Louisa May Alcott’s biography, each episode in the 8-part series examines Louisa’s life through a different lens–Louisa as a celebrity, writer, activist, daughter, and more– highlighting her complexity as a person, woman, and historical figure. Ahead of her time, Louisa railed against the limitations of her gender and fought for women’s suffrage. She craved literary greatness, but was weighed down by the financial needs of her family. Through writing scandalous Gothic thrillers, she found a way to voice her own inner turmoil. In the end, she achieved extraordinary financial success, but creative fulfillment remained elusive.We’ll examine all of this and more on Let Genius Burn. Find more on Instagram and Facebook @letgeniusburn or at letgeniusburn.com.

Copyright: © 2021 Let Genius Burn

Latest Episodes:

Alcott in Our Own Time Oct 14, 2025

Show notes

In this episode, where the title nods to a seminal Alcott text, Alcott in Her Own Time, edited by Daniel Shealy, Jamie and Jill reconnect about what has changed since they first began making Let Genius Burn in the winter of 2019-2020. We discuss what we are currently reading and thinking about in regards to Alcott.
For Jamie, that's thinking about the paths for women, including connections to the novel Dream Count by Chimamanda Adichie and Spinster by Kate Bolick. She relates these questions to Taylor Swift's recent engagement, about which she is feeling conflicted. She also speaks about trauma and neurodivergence, particularly in relation to Karyn Valerius's work: "'Is the Young Lady Mad?' Psychiatric Disability in Louisa May Alcott's Fiction," wondering if Alcott's lifelong struggle with "moodiness" would be seen differently by today's standards.
Jill talks about books she has recently been reading, including Little Women at 150, The Afterlife of Little Women by Beverly Lyon Clark, and Alcotts: Biography of a Family by Madelon Bedell. She gives an in-depth look at an article entitled "Family and Fortune: Louisa May Alcott, Inheritance, and the Legacy of Aunts" by Susan S. Williams, talking about economics and aunthood. Jill is excited about the idea of chosen family and an expansive definition of family that puts our ideas of Little Women as a typical-nuclear-family story through a different lens.
We wrap up by talking about Wild Girls: How the Outdoors Shaped the Women Who Challenged a Nation, a recent favorite of both hosts, by author and scholar Tiya Miles. The book focuses on women in the outdoors, and it brings into focus athleticism, outdoors(wo)manship, and connections to nature, classifying Alcott as a nature-writer.
Bibliography:
Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. Dream Count: A Novel. United States, Knopf Canada, 2025.
Bolick, Kate. Spinster: Making a Life of One's Own. United States, Crown Publishers, 2015.
Miles, Tiya. Wild Girls: How the Outdoors Shaped the Women Who Challenged a Nation. United States, W. W. Norton, 2023.
Little Women at 150. Ed. Daniel Shealy. United States, University Press of Mississippi, 2022.
Valerius, Karyn. "'Is the Young Lady Mad?': Psychiatric Disability in Louisa May Alcott's Fiction." Literatures of Madness: Disability Studies and Mental Health. Switzerland, Springer International Publishing, 2019.
Williams, Susan S. "Family and fortune: Louisa May Alcott, inheritance, and the legacy of aunts." The New England Quarterly 93.1 (2020): 48-73.

Little Women Holiday Bonus Episode Dec 23, 2024

Show notes

Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without Little Women, so we are reading aloud from the iconic first chapter, "Playing Pilgrims" and offering our commentary, citing from various annotated editions of Little Women and the film versions to bring you a well-rounded discussion of your holiday favorite.
Put on your cozy Christmas pajamas and make your cup of tea; it's time to settle into a classic holiday story.

Alcott as Ecofeminist Sep 03, 2024

Show notes

Travel with us to a Cuban coffee plantation, where Alcott's short story Pauline's Passion and Punishment begins. Written in 1862, this short story predates Alcott's later, more successful fiction, but it contains all the traces of her plot devices and characterization that we love.
This is a new episode format where we discuss a single short story in detail. We hope you enjoy this episode!

Alcott in the Archives Aug 27, 2024

Show notes

Max Chapnick read a line in Louisa May Alcott's journal that pointed to one of her stories, but it turned out to be a dead end. Then, he had an idea. He went back to the archives and searched for the title of the story. He turned up an unexpected result: a story written by E.A. Gould, with characteristics that linked it easily to Louisa May Alcott.
He investigated further and discovered more works by E.A. Gould, and has since used computers to analyze the style and see if it matches Alcott's other works--with mixed results. What he comes to understand, through this process of discovery, is about much more than how to attribute a given story to a particular author. It's about learning to live with uncertainty as scholars, how to make archival research more accessible, and the worthwhile pursuit of research for its own sake.

Louisa and Laurie Aug 20, 2024

Show notes

When readers find out that Louisa May Alcott really lived in a family with four sisters, the next question is almost immediately: "Who was Laurie?"
Lis Adams, Director of Education at Louisa May Alcott's Orchard House, spent years researching in the Alcotts' extensive papers at the Houghton Library at Harvard University, and she has edited a collection that introduces us to one of the real-life inspirations for Laurie: Alf Whitman.
Although Alf lived in Concord less than a year, his impact on the Alcott sisters, and Anna Alcott's husband, John, was profound. They kept up correspondence with him for over thirty years, chronicling their lives and losses through their letters to him.
This collection is also a valiant feat of transcribing and editing! As Lis describes in the episode, 19th century letters are not always easy to decipher. You'll learn about her process to bring these letters out of the archives and into the light.
Lis Adams is Director of Education at Louisa May Alcott's Orchard House in Concord, Massachusetts, and a graduate of both Brandeis University and the museum studies program at Tufts University. She is a member and former co-chair of the Concord Historical Collaborative, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa, the Museum Education Roundtable, the Greater Boston Museum Educators Roundtable, the Arlington Historical Society, and the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution.
Lis has presented for the New England Museum Association and the New England Library Association, and has published articles on the Alcotts for the Concord Journal and the Journal of Museum Education. Lis is also an actress and voiceover artist in the greater Boston area, an actor in residence for Playwrights' Platform, and a consultant for the Distinguished Achievements and Special Honors program for the Eastern Massachusetts Association of Community Theaters.

Alcott and Identity Aug 13, 2024

Show notes

Author Peyton Thomas joins Let Genius Burn to speak about queerness and transness in Little Women and other Alcott writings. Peyton Thomas made a significant impact on the Alcott community when he wrote a Twitter thread, and a New York Times op-ed, about understanding Louisa May Alcott as a trans man. His comments sparked a discussion that has opened readers' minds to how Alcott constructed gender both in fiction and in life. We discuss gender dynamics in Little Women, Alcott's fascination with cross-dressing, and a summary and analysis of the short story Enigmas, one of Alcott's thrillers, where gender and identity play a significant role. There is also some childhood nostalgia for American Girl doll books! Peyton Thomas is an author and the creator of the Jo's Boys podcast. His debut novel Both Sides Now won the 2022 International Literacy Association Award for Young Adult Fiction. He's currently at work on a contemporary interpretation of Little Women for adults. His non-fiction has appeared in the New York Times, Vanity Fair, Billboard, Pitchfork, and many other publications.

Alcott and Sex Education Aug 05, 2024

Show notes

Louisa May Alcott and her family were social activists who advocated for all types of reforms in their lifetimes: they were concerned with fair labor, women's suffrage, abolitionism, and diet reform. Yet another social concern for Louisa May Alcott was the access to health and wellness education for young women.
In this episode, we explore the ways that Alcott included health and sex education in her novels, a subversive act in the face of legislation such as Comstock Law that sought to ban materials related to women's health.
We are joined by a scholar who knows a great deal about Alcott's contributions to this field, and many other authors and works. Get ready to take notes for a reading list--we certainly did!
Dr. Stephanie Peebles Tavera is the Assistant Professor of English and Director of the Women's and Gender Studies Program at Texas A&M University-Kingsville. She is the author of (P)rescription Narratives: Feminist Medical Fiction and the Failure of American Censorship (Edinburgh University Press, 2022), which releases in paperback this May.
She is also the author of the critical introduction for Helen Brent, M.D., an 1892 novel by Annie Nathan Meyer that she recovered with Hastings College Press and for which she won Honorable Mention for the 2021 Society for the Study of American Women Writers Book Edition Award. Dr. Tavera is an expert in the fields of long nineteenth-century American women’s literature, medical humanities, and feminist disability studies.
Her articles have appeared in the top journals in her field, including Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers and Science Fiction Studies, and she currently serves as the Assistant Editor of Utopian Studies academic journal. She was recently on the podcast Lost Ladies of Lit, talking about Zelda Fitzgerald’s Save Me the Waltz (1932), which is how she became introduced to the Let Genius Burn podcast.
We hope this episode inspires you to think critically about access to health and sex education and the issues of censorship we are still managing today.

Alcott in the City Jul 30, 2024

Show notes

Although Louisa May Alcott is most often associated with Concord, Massachusetts, where her family lived in several different homes over the course of her lifetime, Alcott made much of her life in Boston. She was a city person who loved the hustle and movement of the city compared to sleepy, dull Concord.
In this episode, we are joined by Michele Steinberg of Boston by Foot tours, who takes us through Beacon Hill and to the Boston Athenaeum to hear many stories about Alcott's different experiences in Boston and her travels there.
Let Genius Burn is the podcast about the life and legacy of Louisa May Alcott, co-hosted by Jill Fuller and Jamie Burgess. Visit letgeniusburn.com for more information.

A Concord Conversation Dec 12, 2022

Show notes

Sit down with Jill and Jamie as they reflect and dissect the week they spent together in Concord. They talk about visits to Orchard House, Fruitlands, Walden Pond, and more. Jill discusses her visit to the Special Collections at the Concord Free Public Library, where she saw Louisa's handwritten manuscript pages from Little Women. Jamie talks about her presentation for the Thoreau Society Gathering- the ecofeminist gothic setting of "Pauline's Passion and Punishment." It's an all-about-Alcott final bonus episode of Season 2!

The Fruitlands Effect Dec 05, 2022

Show notes

On July 13, 2022, Let Genius Burn was invited to speak at Fruitlands Museum in Harvard, Massachusetts, the site where the Alcott family lived--and nearly died--for 9 months in 1843.
This episode is the recording of our talk.
The Fruitlands Effect: How the Utopian Experiment Influenced Louisa May Alcott’s Life and Work

The Alcott family spent less than a year living at Fruitlands, but the experience significantly altered their values and family dynamic. Louisa May Alcott would not have been the same woman without the lessons she learned and hardship she faced during her family’s utopian experiment when she was on the brink of adolescence. We’ll look at the influence of Fruitlands on Louisa May Alcott’s life and writings, and the ways the ideas of the Fruitlands experiment to continued to permeate her work and ultimately changed her forever.

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