Hannah Teare is a London-based fashion stylist whose credits include Virginia Woolf.

Yes, the fashion editor for the society magazine Tatler was the stylist for a series of five fashion shots named after Woolf. I’m not sure why they bear Woolf’s name, but I’ll try to come up with some connections.

In four of the five, the model is posed outdoors in country settings. Could be Sussex. In the fifth, she curls up in a narrow bed. Could be Clarissa Dalloway’s — or Woolf’s own at Monk’s House.

In each photo, the dark-haired model is dressed in fashions that range in color from deep purple to periwinkle blue, but in my opinion, only one of the outfits seems a likely bet for Virginia.

My choice features a long embroidered jacket that looks like something Vita may have brought back from Turkey, a mid-calf-length skirt with what might be a bit of slip peeking beneath the hem and sensible shoes that seem capable of tramping about the South Downs.

The photos, taken by Hyung-Won Ryoo, were published in Tatler.

You will find more about Woolf and fashion here.

Two of Virginia Woolf’s novels helped inspire a new dance that premiered late last month in Bangkok.

Contemporary dancer Setsuko Yamada, one of the leading figures in dance in Japan, premiered the solo dance piece “Wearing Rose Pink” at the Patravadi Theatre on Nov. 27 and 28.

It was described as a “dance on the poignancy and elegance of life” and compared to “a dainty piece of china.”

While Woolf conveys the inner consciousness of her characters through words, Yamada is known for her ability to  ”transform her inner consciousness and memory into movements.”

She said the dance was inspired by Woolf’s novels To the Lighthouse and The Waves and Andrew Wyeth’s painting “Christina’s World.”

A Christmas card designed by Bloomsbury artist Duncan Grant is the earliest one on display in a show of artists’ Christmas cards at Tate Britain through Feb. 1.

Grant’s signed card dates from 1913 and features a “stripey” pattern said to be borrowed from Matisse. But I found the flip side of the card reminiscent of Edvard Munch as well. You can view side one and side two of the card on the Tate’s Web site.

If you have time, consider taking the Tate’s Bloomsbury Archive Journey offered online. It includes written correspondence among Bloomsbury artists and an audio interview with Grant, friend of Virginia Woolf and John Maynard Keynes. Not knowing that this audio clip existed, listening to it took my breath away.

Read more about the Tate Christmas card display.

Whatever holiday you celebrate, you may need a last-minute gift idea for a favorite reader. Here are a few books that could suffice. The bonus is that each has a Virginia Woolf connection, however slim.

• Writers’ Houses is a book produced by Francesca Premoli-Droulers that includes wonderful photographs of the homes of writers. Those of Vita Sackville-West and Virginia are included. Read more.
• A Truth Universally Acknowledged: Thirty-Three Great Writers on Why We Read Jane Austen, edited by Susannah Carson, includes Virginia’s thoughts about the great novelist of Regency England. She is among 33 authors whose opinions are included in this volume, published by Random House. Read more. And check out a post about the book on a super Austen blog I just discovered, Jane Austen’s World.
• The newly released The Letters of T.S. Eliot, Volume Two: 1923-1925 includes letters from Virginia. It is edited by Valerie Eliot and Hugh Haughton and published by Faber Faber. Volume Two is being published simultaneously with the revised edition of Volume One of the letters, which covers the years from 1898 to 1922. Read more.
• A new translation of  The Second Sex By Simone de Beauvoir replaces all of the original material removed by its original translator. This material includes long extracts from works by Virginia Woolf, Sophie Tolstoy and Colette, among others. Translators Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier Jonathan Cape also corrected mistranslations of philosophical terms and punctuation. These changes, along with the replacement of approximately 15 percent of the original content — particularly from sections on history and literature — are said to make a meaningful impact for readers interested in gaining greater understanding of Beauvoir’s views on women’s lives. Read more.

Mark Hussey sent out an alert on the Woolf list-serv that the children’s book, Anastasia at This Address (1991), by Lois Lowry, has a character in it named Septimus Smith.

I checked it out at the library and read it with pleasure, while engaging in some nostalgia as I thought back on some of the books I read in my “tween” years. I wish I’d had the Anastasia Krupnik series—she’s a bright and adventurous role model for girls.

As for my Woolf quest, there was no clue to any other identity for this Septimus, also known as Tim, a well-to-do New York bachelor who places a singles ad to which Anastasia responds. I contacted Lois Lowry through her Web site, and she responded that there are no other Woolf references in the series, but in one of the earlier books – Anastasia Again! (1981) – there’s a Gertrude Stein. She explained her motivation when writing the books:

“I remember taking a certain amount of private pleasure in inserting references that kids wouldn’t notice—or care about if they did—but which from time to time, adults pick up on. Of course a 12 or 13 year old girl won’t get that. But they read right past it. And maybe sometime years later they will encounter Gertrude Stein, or Septimus Smith … and a little light bulb will illuminate.”

News blogs and Web sites are busy publishing ruminations about books and writing. Here are links to a few with connections to my favorite author. Virginia Woolf, of course.

• In the Wall Street Journal, Rebecca Stott names Woolf’s Orlando as number two in a list of the top five works of historical fiction.
• A Seattle Post-Intelligencer reader blog, written by a local librarian named Ann G., is “Looking back at reading by the decade.” In the post, Ann picks her favorite book by decade. For the 1930s, her choice is The Years. The novel, Woolf’s last published in her lifetime, was praised by the New York Times as her “richest novel” when it came out in 1937. It became a best seller in the United States that year. As a result, Woolf was featured on the April 12, 1937, cover of Time magazine. The cover story compared Woolf to Margaret Mitchell, whose Gone With the Wind was a 1936 best seller.
• In an ode to diaries on The Guardian’s Web site, writer Gyles Brandreth pays homage to an edited volume of Woolf’s diary entries. Brandreth praises the volume, titled A Moment’s Liberty: The Shorter Diary of Virginia Woolf, for including “a gem on every page.” Anne Olivier Bell is the editor.
• Margaret Drabble opines about the unique genre of the short story on The Guardian Web site. In her piece, she says Woolf tried to emulate her rival Katherine Mansfield’s short story style. But Drabble finds Woolf’s style “less accomplished, and sometimes embarrassingly whimsical.”
• The New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2009 includes at least two by authors who read Woolf. They include
  • Family Album by Penelope Lively, whose City of the Mind is clearly influenced by Mrs. Dalloway, and
  • A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster by Rebecca Solnit, plenary speaker at this year’s Woolf and the City, the 19th Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf.

Virginia Woolf and race was the topic of a recent discussion on the Virginia Woolf Listserv. Here are some of the sources readers and scholars suggested:

• Jane Marcus’s book Hearts of Darkness
• Patricia McManus article “The “Offensiveness’ of Virginia Woolf: From a Moral to a Political Reading” in Woolf Studies Annual 14 (2008)
• Laura Doyle’s  chapter titled “Voyaging Beyond the Race Mother: Melymbrosia and To the Lighthouse”  in her book Bordering on the Body: The Racial Matrix of Modern Fiction and Culture. Oxford University Press, 1994.
• Work by Urmila Seshagiri, including “Orienting Virginia Woolf: Race, Aesthetics, and Politics in To the Lighthouse”
• Gretchen Gerzina’s work on Bloomsbury/Woolf and race
• Anna Snaith work on Bloomsbury/Woolf and race.

Here’s a bit of Virginia Woolf trivia. Did you know that pianist Ludovico Einaudi’s first album “Le Onde” was inspired by Virginia Woolf’s 1931 novel The Waves?

The cycle of solo piano ballads came out in 1996.

Einaudi’s music is often compared to that of Philip Glass, who composed the music for Stephen Daldry’s film “The Hours” — thus, another Woolf connection for the Milan-trained Einaudi.

Listen to the title track, and feel the waves wash gently over you. The sound is quite beautiful and soothing with just a hint of dramatic tension.

A student-faculty team at Mars Hills College has won grant funding to explore the connection between Taoism and the writing of Virginia Woolf.

Ali Andrejewski, an English and psychology student, was awarded $500, and faculty mentor Joanna Pierce won $250 to support research for the grant proposal titled, “’But how describe a world seen without a self?’: Taoist Principles in Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse and The Waves.”

The college recently awarded grants to 12 students and faculty members for research projects ranging from mountain history to pop music.

A Web site for the 20th Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf: Virginia Woolf and the Natural World has launched, and organizers have announced the conference call for papers, which are due Jan. 15, 2010.

The conference, which will be held in the Thomas & King Leadership and Conference Center at Georgetown College in Georgetown, Kentucky, is set for June 3 to 6.

Georgetown is located 10 miles north of Lexington on I-75. Get a map of the area.

Keynote speakers will be:

• Bonnie Kime Scott, University of California, San Diego
• Diana Swanson, Northern Illinois University
• Carrie Rohman, Lafayette College
• Christina Alt, University of Ottawa

The conference will also include an Art and Rare Book Exhibit at the Anne Wright Wilson Art Gallery on the Georgetown campus and a Silent Auction, with proceeds going to Old Friends, a Kentucky facility for retired thoroughbreds. 

“Sharp stripes of shadow lay on the grass, and the dew dancing on the tips of the flowers and leaves made the garden like a mosaic of single sparks not yet formed into one whole. The birds, whose breasts were specked canary and rose, now sang a strain or two together, wildly, like skaters rollicking arm-in-arm, and were suddenly silent, breaking asunder.”  Virginia Woolf – The Waves

For more information, contact conference organizer Kristin Czarnecki, assistant professor of English, by mail at Georgetown College, 400 E. College St., Georgetown, KY 40324. Or send her an e-mail.