austenexchange

This year’s works are now available to read (and kudos and comment on) at the collection! If there’s a gift for you in the collection, please remember to leave a comment for your writer when you’re able.

If your gift does not include a requested character or relationship, contains a DNW, or appears incomplete, please contact us as soon as possible at austenmod@gmail.com

Works will remain anonymous until 3 October (countdown). The collection will remain open for late treats.

The deadline has passed—at least, the official one. This year, a sizable portion of our participants have received extensions, meaning that we will continue to see assignments posted until 22:00 on 20 September. If you haven’t received a gift yet, fear not—your writer is still hard at work.

At this time, there are two pinch hits available, due on 25 September at 00:00 UTC (countdown), 24 hours before scheduled reveals. If you would be able to fill one of these pinch hits but may need a little extra time to complete it, please feel free to get in touch.

If you are interested in claiming one of the pinch hits below, please comment on this post or email us at austenmod@gmail.com, and include your AO3 username in your message. Post comments are screened.

Thank you, and best of luck to all those who are still writing—whether for an assignment, the pinch hit, or a treat!

Edit: All pinch hits have now been claimed. Many thanks to our wonderful pinch hitters!

Remember that works will remain anonymous until author reveals on 3 October. Until then, please refrain from talking about your assignment in a way that might reveal your identity.

Assignments are due on 18 September by 22:00 UTC (countdown). If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact us at austenmod@gmail.com.

There is one initial pinch hit, also due by the assignment deadline of 22:00 UTC on 18 September.

If you would like to claim this pinch hit, please comment on this post or email me at austenmod@gmail.com and include your AO3 username in your message. Post comments are screened.

The sign-up period will be ending at 22:00 UTC on 2 August (countdown), one day from time of posting.

Until then, you can sign up or edit an existing sign-up on AO3 through this link.

As a reminder, if there’s anything you want your writer to avoid in your fic, you must clearly identify it as a Do Not Want/DNW in the requests section of your sign-up form. Please also remember to complete and unlock any letters linked in your sign-up.

If you have a moment to spare, consider browsing requests to confirm your matchability. If you haven’t the time, no worries; once matching has been run, you’ll get an email to let you know if you need to add offers.

As always, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us with any questions. 

Thank you to everyone who submitted nominations to the tagset over the past week—as always, it’s been a delight to see what you’ve all come up with. Now that nominations have closed, we’ll be going through the tagset to ensure that everything is as and where it should be. There are no nominations queries at this time.

If you have any tags you were unable to get in by the nominations deadline, you may submit up to five late nominations through a comment on this post or an email to austenmod@gmail.com until 22:00 UTC on 31 July (countdown), 48 hours before the end of sign-ups.

Thank you to everyone who has submitted nominations so far—we’ve really enjoyed seeing your ideas come in over the past few days. As a reminder, the nominations period will end on July 21 at 22:00 UTC (countdown), about four days from the time of posting. To help this period run smoothly, we would like to take a moment to clarify the tags currently awaiting approval.

If you see any of your nominations in this post, please leave us a comment by 22:00 UTC on 19 July (countdown), a bit under 48 hours from time of posting. Thank you!

Crossover Fandom

There are eight nominations under ‘Crossover Fandom’ with incomplete disambiguations:

• Anne Elliot (Persuasion)/George Knightley (Emma)
• Colonel Brandon (Sense and Sensibility)/Frederick Wentworth (Persuasion)
• Fitzwilliam Darcy (Pride and Prejudice)/Frederick Wentworth (Persuasion)
• Fitzwilliam Darcy (Pride and Prejudice)/Henry Tilney (Northanger Abbey)
• Henry Crawford (Mansfield Park)/Henry Tilney (Northanger Abbey)
• Henry Tilney (Northanger Abbey)/Fitzwilliam Darcy (Pride and Prejudice)
• Jane Bennet (Pride and Prejudice)/Henry Crawford (Mansfield Park)
• Mary Crawford (Mansfield Park)/the woman who stops Elizabeth from talking to Darcy over coffee (Pride and Prejudice)

Before we can approve these nominations, we’d like to confirm which versions of these canons they refer to. If you nominated any of these relationships, please comment on this post indicating your preference or edit your nominations to disambiguate further [e.g., ‘Colonel Brandon (S&S - Austen)/Frederick Wentworth (Persuasion 2022)’].

If the nominator(s) do not respond to this query or edit their nominations by 22:00 UTC on 19 July, any outstanding nominations will be approved as being for the novels.

Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen

• Catherine Morland & Eleanor Tilney & Henry Tilney (NA - Austen)

Since Catherine and Henry are in a canon romantic relationship, we want to confirm that your nomination is indicating a platonic relationship between all characters (i.e., Catherine Morland and Henry Tilney are not in a romantic and/or sexual relationship in the fic), as the use of ampersands indicates. If that is the relationship type you would like to request, we will approve the tag as submitted. If, however, you would like Catherine and Henry to be in a romantic and/or sexual relationship with one another and another type of relationship (e.g., platonic, familial) with Eleanor, using the tag ‘Catherine Morland/Henry Tilney & Eleanor Tilney (NA - Austen)’ may be more effective.

If you have a preference between these tags, please leave a comment here or edit the nomination on your nominations page by 22:00 UTC on 19 July. In the absence of a response, we will add both tags to the tagset.

Persuasion - Jane Austen

• Admiral Croft & Sophia Croft & Anne Elliot

Since Admiral and Sophia Croft are married in canon, we’d like to confirm that your nomination is indicating a platonic relationship between all characters (i.e., Admiral Croft and Sophia Croft are not in a romantic and/or sexual relationship in the fic), which is what your use of ampersands indicates. If that is the relationship type you would like to request, we will approve the tag as ‘Admiral Croft & Sophia Croft & Anne Elliot (Persuasion - Austen)’. If, however, you would like Admiral and Sophia Croft to be in a romantic and/or sexual relationship with one another and another type of relationship (e.g., platonic, familial) with Anne Elliot, using the tag ‘Admiral Croft/Sophia Croft & Anne Elliot (Persuasion - Austen)’ may be more effective.

If you have a preference between these tags, please leave a comment here or edit the nomination on your nominations page by 22:00 UTC on 19 July. In the absence of a response, we will add both tags to the tagset.

• Catherine "Kitty" Bennet/James Benwick
• James Benwick/Fanny Price

We assume that the James Benwick in question is the one from the original Austen novels, but we do want to know which respective versions of Kitty Bennet and Fanny Price were intended by the nominator(s).

If the nominator does not respond to this query or edit their nomination by 22:00 UTC on 19 July, ‘Catherine "Kitty" Bennet/James Benwick’ will be added to the tagset as ‘Catherine "Kitty" Bennet (P&P - Austen)/James Benwick (Persuasion - Austen)’, under ‘Crossover Fandom’.

However, the nomination for ‘James Benwick/Fanny Price’ was accidentally already accepted as ‘James Benwick (Persuasion - Austen)/Fanny Price (MP - Austen)’, which means it can't be edited. That means that if the nominator meant a different version of Fanny Price, they need to either respond to this query by 22:00 UTC on 19 July, or add a new nomination under ‘Crossover Fandom’ with the desired disambiguations.

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

• Elizabeth Bennet (Pride and Prejudice)/Catherine Morland

Similarly to above, we assume that the Elizabeth Bennet you want is the one from the fandom that this tag was nominated under, but we want to know which version of Catherine Morland was intended by the nominator. If the nominator does not respond to this query or edit their nomination by 22:00 UTC on 19 July, this tag will be added to the tagset as ‘Elizabeth Bennet (P&P - Austen)/Catherine Morland (NA - Austen)’ under the tag ‘Crossover Fandom’.

Nominations will remain open here until 21 July at 22:00 UTC. Thanks again!

Welcome and welcome back! As promised, Austen Exchange will be coming back for its fifth round next month, with nominations beginning on 14 July.

As part of our annual housekeeping, we’ve also made a couple of tweaks to our FAQ. Whether you're a first-timer or a long-timer, now is a great time to take a look. As always, we’re happy to answer any questions here on the comm or via email at austenmod@gmail.com. The pinned post has also been updated with details for 2026, and you can find our schedule below:

Schedule
Nominations: 14 July to 21 July, 22:00 UTC → countdown
Sign-Ups: 24 July to 2 August, 22:00 UTC → countdown
Assignments Out: on or before 5 August
Posting Deadline: 18 September, 22:00 UTC → countdown
Collection Opens: 26 September, 00:00 UTC → countdown
Author Reveals: 3 October, 00:00 UTC → countdown

If you’re looking to get into the Austen spirit early, feel free to take a look at the works and prompts in December’s 250th Birthday Prompt Fest collection, where there’s much to admire and inspire.

Thanks for reading, and we hope to see you soon for round five!

Jane Austen's 250th birthday is on 16 December 2025! To celebrate, we’re hosting a prompt fest. It welcomes prompts for fanworks of any work by Jane Austen. Fanworks may be of any medium and fills of any length, provided they answer the prompt.

Works will reveal and prompting will close on Austen's birthday at 08:00 UTC, but prompts may be filled at any time, including after reveals.

For questions about the fest, please contact austenmod@gmail.com. For general questions about claiming and fulfilling prompts, please refer to AO3’s Prompt Meme FAQ.

Links
Rules & FAQ + AO3 Collection + Tagset + Requests App

Authors are now revealed at the collection. With authors revealed, this year’s round has officially ended, but the collection will remain open indefinitely for late treats. Thanks to everyone who helped make this round a positive experience as a participant, pinch-hitter, beta reader, or otherwise! This exchange couldn’t happen without you.

Assuming sufficient time on the mod side and interest on yours, Austen Exchange will return for its fifth round in 2026. If you have any feedback regarding the exchange, please feel free to comment on this post or to email me at austenmod@gmail.com.

If you can’t wait until next year for more Austen, please join us for the Jane Austen 250th Birthday Prompt Fest, which will be opening shortly. I look forward to seeing even more of your great ideas!