I'd have a stable full of Arabian steeds, rooms piled with books, and I'd write out of a magic inkstand, so that my works should be as famous as Laurie's music. I want to do something splendid before I go into my castle-something heroic, or wonderful-that won't be forgotten after I'm dead. I don't know what, but I'm on the watch for it, and mean to astonish you all, some day. I think I shall write books, and get rich and famous; that would suit me, so that is my favorite dream.
I think every girl that ever read Little Women wanted to be Jo: creative, strong-minded and independent, how could you not? I certainly did, in fact, I actually thought I was her – after all we had the same name.
Even now, around 20 years after the first time I read Little Women (and the other books in the series) I still have a soft spot for Jo March. I spent a long long time admiring her, and still find her one of the characters I relate to the most today, maybe because the lines between the child I was and the child she was are a little blurry in my mind.
The reason I am known as Jo now, rather than Josephine, or the Josie my Mum always imagined being my being called is because of Jo March; the reason I dismissed Josie out of hand is because Jo March would have hated it; I cut my hair into a tomboy-ish crop and kept it as such until my late teens; like her I loved to spend hours hidden away with a book when I should be doing other things; I loved to write and dreamed of being published; I had a hot temper and I was stubborn. My cousin told me once after watching the Winona Ryder adapation that Jo reminded her of me; it’s one of the nicest things anybody has ever said to me. I can't think of another female character that I love as much as I love her.
