L.M. Montgomery and Change

Megan Follows

Keynote Title: "Anne of Everywhere: How A Redheaded Girl from PEI Became Canada's Greatest Cultural Ambassador and Changed my Life Forever."

When: Saturday, June 27--access to this keynote is included in all full, virtual or in-person, conference registrations! OR you can register for free virtual access for this keynote only here. 

Katharine Slater

Keynote Title: "Change the Subject: Queer Opacity and L.M. Montgomery"

When: Friday, June 26

Dr. Katharine Slater is an associate professor of English at Rowan University, where she teaches courses on children’s and young adult literature, queer literature, and romance. Her most recent publication on L.M. Montgomery’s work is titled “‘A ghost you can feel and hear but never see’: Queer Hauntings in Emily of New Moon,” and her current book project, The Queer Mobilities of Girlhood in Young Adult Literature, argues that sapphic girls in YA texts grow and move in ways that disturb linear narratives around female adolescent development. In addition to her academic work, Kate writes adult sapphic romance under a pen name; her debut novel was a recent finalist for the Lambda Literary Awards.

Allison McBain Hudson

Keynote Title: "Maud, Pat, and Me: The Materiality of Change"

When: Thursday, June 25

Dr. Allison McBain Hudson is the current Visiting Scholar at the L.M. Montgomery Institute. She recently completed her Ph.D. at Dublin City University on the significance of material culture in the novels of L.M. Montgomery, particularly the Emily trilogy. Originally from Alberta, she obtained a BA in English from the University of Calgary in 1995 and moved to Ireland in 1997. She earned an MA in Children’s and Young Adult Literature from Dublin City University in 2019 with a focus on Montgomery’s unique Romanticism and “everyday magic.” When she’s not studying or teaching, she is quilting and sewing, walking the dogs in the woods, and looking for old houses and kindred spirits. She is married to an Irish artist, and they live on the outskirts of Dublin with their two daughters.

Dr. Allison McBain Hudson is the current Visiting Scholar at the L.M. Montgomery Institute. She recently completed her PhD at Dublin City University on the significance of material culture in the novels of L.M. Montgomery, particularly the Emily trilogy. Originally from Alberta, she obtained a BA in English from the University of Calgary in 1995 and moved to Ireland in 1997. She earned an MA in Children’s and Young Adult Literature from Dublin City University in 2019 with a focus on Montgomery’s unique Romanticism and “everyday magic.” When she’s not studying or teaching, she is quilting and sewing, walking the dogs in the woods, and looking for old houses and kindred spirits. She is married to an Irish artist, and they live on the outskirts of Dublin with their two daughters.

Dr. Caroline E. Jones is a past Visiting Scholar at the L.M. Montgomery Institute. She received her Ph.D. in English Studies, focusing on children’s and young adult literatures, from Illinois State University and her M.A. in English from Hollins College. Her work on Montgomery goes back to her M.A. thesis, which explores the “happy ending” of the Emily trilogy. She has since presented and published on class, motherhood, the young artist, and more in Montgomery. She has essays in Children’s Play in Literature (2019), L.M. Montgomery and War (2017), L.M. Montgomery’s Rainbow Valleys (2015), and Anne Around the World (2013). Her most recent publication is “Read What You Know: Nostalgia and the Discovery of Self through L.M. Montgomery’s Emily of New Moon,” which appears in the L.M. Montgomery and Re-Vision collection in the Journal of L.M. Montgomery Studies. A former bookseller and full-time academic, she currently works as an editor in Austin, Texas, USA.

Proposal submissions are now closed. The CFP below is preserved only for reference purposes.

The constancy of change pervades Montgomery’s life, work, and legacy. From the social, literary, political, and technological changes that took place throughout her lifetime to the ways in which she wrote about her characters coping with personal change, Montgomery engages change in all aspects of the human experience. Whether considered a positive or negative force, change is vital in both “real” life and in fiction, for without it comes stagnation, boredom, or worse. Change is not an easy force to be reckoned with, and the challenges of change are a common theme in Montgomery’s world.

The 2026 conference invites proposals for research presentations that consider the theme of change in L.M. Montgomery’s works and world. Submissions should engage some aspect of this force in Montgomery’s life, creative work, life-writing, or legacy. Possible topics include, but are not limited, to:

• Changes in society during Montgomery’s lifetime
• Changes to physical environments affected by Montgomery’s legacy
• Paradigm shifts in Montgomery’s fiction or life writing: changes in dreams, life trajectories, expectations, hopes, assumptions, etc
• Changes to Montgomery’s work due to self-editing, whether to her fiction or her journals
• Montgomery’s own dislike of change as presented in her journals and/or characters
• How Montgomery’s fictional characters deal with or feel about change
• Changes in Montgomery’s style, tone, subject matter, and voice over her career, whether in her fiction, life writing, or poetry
• Changes to the critical responses to Montgomery’s work over time—how have scholars studied or perceived Montgomery’s work?
• Changes to the ways readers (and viewers) find, accept, reject, engage with, and generally consume Montgomery texts.
• Changes made to Montgomery’s work in translation or adaptation, particularly considering the role of equality/diversity/inclusion
• Ways in which Montgomery’s works speak to current changes in aspects of our own lives, from personal circumstances to global events such as war, pandemic, the development of AI
• The agency involved in changing one’s environment or circumstances in Montgomery’s fiction or life writing
• Changes in the natural world – seasons, destructive forces, or the effects of time as presented in Montgomery’s fiction, life writing, or legacy
• Climate change through the lens of Montgomery’s work and legacy
• Affective change: what emotions/ somatic experiences/ interconnections does Montgomery render in her writing? Does change hurt or heal?