Drafting the Past

Drafting the Past is a show about the craft of writing history, hosted by historian and writer Kate Carpenter. In this episode, Kate is joined by historian Dr. Omar Valerio-Jiménez. Omar is a professor of history at the University of Texas at San Antonio, where he is also an associate dean for graduate studies. He originally worked as an engineer before going back to school to become a historian. His work focuses on histories of Mexican American civil rights, citizenship, education, and memory. His first book was called River of Hope: Forging Identity and Nation in the Rio Grande Borderlands, and his second book, which is the focus of this interview, is Remembering Conquest: Mexican Americans, Memory, and Citizenship. Remembering Conquest explores the collective memories of the U.S.-Mexico War and how those memories motivated civil rights campaigns among several generations of Mexican Americans. Omar is a pleasure to speak with, and his thoughtful approach to his work came through in our conversation. Keep an ear out especially for his work log system, which I might have to try out myself.

Welcome back to Drafting the Past, a podcast where we talk all about the craft of writing history. I'm Kate Carpenter and for this episode, I'm delighted to be joined on the podcast by Dr. Emily Herring. As you'll hear, I've been following Emily's career for a while now, and I was eager to ask about her first book and her shift from academia to full-time writing. Her book is called Herald of a Restless World: How Henri Bergson Brought Philosophy to the People. It's an intellectual biography of philosopher Henri Bergson, who achieved remarkable fame in the early 1900s, and it's a genuinely fascinating and pleasurable read. Let's dig into it. Here's my interview with Dr. Emily Herring. Buy Emily's book Find links and show notes at draftingthepast.com Support the show on Patreon Sign up for the free show newsletter  

Welcome back to Drafting the Past. I'm Kate Carpenter, and this is a podcast about the craft of writing history. In this episode, I'm joined by historian and writer Dr. Surekha Davies. Surekha is a former history professor who now writes full-time, and she can also be found speaking about history and consulting on monsters. In fact, monsters have played a major role in much of her research. Her first award-winning book was titled Renaissance Ethnography and the Invention of the Human: New Worlds, Maps, and Monsters. Her second book, which is aimed at a general audience, is out now; it's called Humans: A Monstrous History. The book looks at, as she puts it, how people “have defined the human in relation to everything from apes to zombies, and how they invented race, gender, and nations along the way.” I spoke with Surekha about how she made the switch to full-time writing, her newsletter, Notes from an Everything Historian, and how she organized what could have been an unruly book. Enjoy my conversation with Dr. Surekha Davies.

In this episode of Drafting the Past, host Kate Carpenter is joined by historian Dr. Lyndal Roper. Lyndal is a professor at the University of Oxford and the author of six books on gender, religion, witchcraft, and German history. Her newest book out this year is a history of the sixteenth-century German Peasants' War titled Summer of Fire and Blood. The book follows the movement, beliefs, hopes, and actions of the peasants in this mass uprising. I loved the opportunity to talk with Lyndal about how she wrote about such a massive and relatively obscure event for a general audience, the way her own movement across the land shaped her work, why she prefers the screen to the handwritten page, and much more.

In this episode of Drafting the Past, host Kate Carpenter is joined by Dr. Judith Giesberg. Dr. Giesberg is a historian and professor at Villanova University. She is the author of six books focused on the U.S. Civil War and its aftermath. She is also an active digital and public historian, and her newest book is the culmination of these interests. Inspired by an ongoing digital project, Last Seen: The Enduring Search by Formerly Enslaved People to Find Their Lost Families draws on advertisements placed by formerly enslaved people after the Civil War—in some cases, long after—attempting to find loved ones who had been stolen away from them when they were sold by enslavers. It's a fascinating book, at turns heartbreaking and inspiring, and I was delighted to get to ask Judy more about the project and her research process.

In this episode Kate is joined by writer and historian Dr. Rebecca Brenner Graham. Rebecca is a post-doctoral research associate at Brown University, but before that she taught high school history, an experience that we talk a lot more about in this episode. Her first book, out now, is called Dear Miss Perkins: A Story of Frances Perkins's Efforts to Aid Refugees from Nazi Germany, and it is not only a compelling history but holds valuable lessons for readers now. I also asked Rebecca to dig into her approach for publicizing a recently released book, and I think her advice will be a big help for other authors.

This is Drafting the Past, a podcast about the craft of writing history. In this episode, host Kate Carpenter is joined by historian Dr. Marlene Daut. Marlene is a professor at Yale University and is the author of four books, as well as an editor of several more. The most recent two of those books are Awakening the Ashes: An Intellectual History of the Haitian Revolution, which was a winner of the 2024 Frederick Douglass Book Prize, and The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe. She is also the author of many articles and essays in places like The New Yorker, Harper's, Essence, The Nation, and more. Our conversation covers some burning questions about Marlene's work, including how she works on more than one book at a time, why you might find her typing into her phone at the grocery store, and she is inspired by the work of investigative journalists. Enjoy Kate's conversation with Dr. Marlene Daut.

In this episode, host Kate Carpenter is joined by Dr. James Tejani. James is an associate professor of history at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. His first book, A Machine to Move Ocean and Earth: The Making of the Port of Los Angeles—and America came out last year with Norton, and it's a fascinating history that covers Western settlement, slavery, the Civil War, science and engineering, and much more. Our interview ranges from how Tejani came to think of himself as a writer to how developing tendonitis changed his writing practice.

Welcome back to Drafting the Past, a show about the craft of writing history. In this episode, Kate Carpenter interviews historian Dr. Seth Rockman. Seth is a historian at Brown University. His first book was called Scraping By: Wage Labor, Slavery, and Survival in Early Baltimore, and he is also the co-editor of the volume Slavery's Capitalism: A New History of American Economic Development. He does a great deal of interesting interdisciplinary work on labor history, and he has even been called on to share his research findings on slavery and capitalism with the U.S. House Financial Services Committee. His new book, out now, is called Plantation Goods: A Material History of American Slavery. You'll love Seth's responses about how challenging the writing process can be, the joys of archives and the need for deadlines to drag us out of them, and why his dissertation adviser's advice is always in his ear while he writes. Thanks for listening to this episode of Drafting the Past. I also want to give a special shout out to some of the newest supporters of the show on Patreon at the third draft tier. Huge thank you to Lauren S., Megan N., Kate D., Katie B., and Jenny S., as well as all of the supporters at the first and second draft tier. Drafting the Past is a one-woman show, and your financial support makes it possible to keep going. If you would like to join these amazing supporters, you can visit patreon.com/draftingthepast to learn more. And of course, you can visit draftingthepast.com to find notes from this and every episode of the show. Until next time, remember that friends don't let friends write boring history.

Hello there, this is Drafting the Past, and I'm Kate Carpenter. In each episode, I interview a historian about their writing process, and today I'm joined by Duke University historian James Chappel. James is the author of two books. His first book is titled Catholic Modern: The Challenge of Totalitarianism and the Remaking of the Church, and it focuses on the transformation of the Catholic church in twentieth century Europe. But for his second book, which is out now, he has gone in a bit of a different direction. The new book is called Golden Years: How Americans Invented and Reinvented Old Age. We'll get into how he moved between subjects, why he says he's always writing, and how he took a mountain of fascinating research on the history of old age and retirement and turned it into one interesting and easy to read book.  Find show notes, subscribe to the newsletter, and more at draftingthepast.com. You can also support the show at patreon.com/draftingthepast

Episode 55 features Dr. Robin Bernstein. Robin is a cultural historian who specializes in race and racism from the nineteenth century to the present, and is the Dillon Professor of American History at Harvard University. Her first, award-winning book was Racial Innocence: Performing American Childhood from Slavery to Civil Rights, and she has written essays and articles on a wide range of subjects. Her new book is called Freeman's Challenge: The Murder that Shook America's Original Prison for Profit, and it's truly remarkable. I had a hard time putting it down, so I was especially delighted to find out more about how Robin researched, wrote, and revised to reach the finished product.

In this episode I'm so happy to welcome historian Prithi Kanakamedala to talk about writing with me. Prithi is a professor of history at Bronx Community College CUNY, and is also a faculty member at CUNY Graduate Center. She is an active public historian, who has worked with a wide range of cultural organizations. One of the projects she worked on as a historian and curator for a wide-ranging public history project called In Pursuit of Freedom, which included an exhibit at the Brooklyn Historical Society. Out of this project emerged Prithi's new book Brooklynites: The Remarkable Story of the Free Black Communities that Shaped a Borough. I was so excited to talk with Prithi about the relationship between her writing and her public history work, and how she sees her role as a historian in relationship to the communities she studies. Enjoy my conversation with Dr. Prithi Kanakamedala.   Drafting the Past is created, hosted, and produced by Kate Carpenter. The podcast is free for everyone, but you can help keep it going by making a contribution at patreon.com/draftingthepast.

Welcome to Drafting the Past, a podcast all about the craft of writing history. I'm Kate Carpenter, and in each episode I talk with a historian about the practices, archival frustrations and joys, drafts and revisions and more that go into writing history. In this episode, I'm delighted to be joined by Dr. Andrew Kahrl. Andrew is a professor of history and African American Studies at the University of Virginia. His third book was published by the University of Chicago Press earlier this year, titled The Black Tax: 150 Years of Theft, Exploitation, and Dispossession in America. Andrew is especially interested in issues of housing and real estate, land use and ownership, and local tax systems. He is the author of two additional books, The Land Was Ours: African American Beaches from Jim Crow to the Sunbelt South, and Free the Beaches: The Story of Ned Coll and the Battle for America's Most Exclusive Shoreline. In addition to his books, Andrew regularly writes for public outlets like the New York Times, Washington Post, The Guardian, and more. In our conversation, we talked about how Andrew wrestled the research for his latest book into a compelling narrative argument, and why he firmly believes in the importance of history that speaks to present-day issues. He also shared some unexpected writing advice from his dad that I think you'll enjoy hearing about. Enjoy my conversation with Dr. Andrew Kahrl.

Welcome back to Drafting the Past, a podcast about the craft of writing history. In this episode, host Kate Carpenter welcomes someone a little bit different to the podcast: writer and writing coach Helen Betya Rubinstein. Helen is neither a historian nor a writer or history herself, but she has been working as a writing coach for the past six years, often with historians and other academics. If you remember my conversation with Anna Zeide in episode 29 last year, Helen was the writing coach that Anna and her co-editors brought in to a workshop to help book contributors work on writing essays aimed at wider audiences. I'm delighted to have the chance to talk more with Helen about what exactly a writing coach does and the kinds of conversations she finds herself having with historians. In addition to her work as a coach and teacher, Helen is a writer with MFA degrees from Brooklyn College and the University of Iowa, and her essays and fiction have appeared in publications including The Kenyon Review, The Paris Review Daily, and Literary Hub. She is the author of a book of lyric fictions and also has a forthcoming book about writing, teaching, and publishing.

In this episode, Kate Carpenter interviews Dr. Lindsay Chervinsky, a historian of the presidency, political culture, and the government, and the executive director of the George Washington Presidential Library. Her first book, which came out in 2020, was The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution. She's also the co-editor of the book Mourning the Presidents: Loss and Legacy in American Culture, and she writes regularly for the public and appears on podcasts and news coverage as an expert on presidential history. Her new book is out now. It's called Making the Presidency: John Adams and the Precedents that Forged the Republic. Listen now to learn about Lindsay's approach to writing and revising narrative history, why she's an evangelist for writing groups, and how her revision process was inspired by Taylor Swift.

Drafting the Past is a podcast about the craft of writing history hosted by Kate Carpenter. If you've been listening for a while, you know that oral histories have come up pretty frequently on the show, and that I also work with oral histories in my own current research project. So I was delighted when the opportunity came up to talk with today's guest, Clara Bingham. Clara is a journalist, and her two most recent books have been works of oral history that let the subjects speak for themselves. Her most recent book is The Movement: How Women's Liberation Transformed America, 1963-1973. It is a follow-up to her previous book Witness to the Revolution: Radicals, Resisters, Vets, Hippies, and the Year America Lost its Mind and Found Its Soul. Clara has had a fascinating career as a political reporter, writer, documentarian, and more. I'll let her tell you about it all. I know historians are occasionally a little skeptical about journalists who write history, but I think we have a lot to learn from each other. That was definitely the case in this interview, and I loved hearing from Clara about how she tracked down people to interview, the ways she wove their accounts together, and why she thinks of herself as more of a historian than a journalist these days. Enjoy my interview with Clara Bingham.

In this episode Kate interviewed not one, but three authors: Robert Alpert, Merle Eisenberg, and Lee Mordechai. Together, Robert, Merle, and Lee are the co-authors of a new book, Diseased Cinema: Plagues, Pandemics, and Zombies in American Movies. Robert Alpert is a lawyer and film scholar who teaches at Fordham University and has written extensively about film following his career as a practicing attorney. Merle Eisenberg is a historian of late antiquity and the early middle ages and a professor at Oklahoma State University. Lee Mordechai is a historian of the eastern Roman Empire and a professor at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Together, Merle and Lee also host a podcast called Infectious Historians, all about the history of disease, pandemics, and medicine. Kate talked with all three about what it was like to write a book together, which comes with one more wrinkle: Robert and Lee are also father and son!

In this episode, host Kate Carpenter is joined by historian, writer, and podcaster Dr. Neil J. Young. Neil has been a prolific writer in venues like The Atlantic, Slate, the Los Angeles Times, and many more, a contributing columnist to the HuffPost and The Week, and he is also one of the co-hosts of the terrific history podcast Past Present. He also helped to create and produce the podcast Welcome to Your Fantasy, with historian Natalia Petrzela, who joined me on a previous episode of the show. Neil is the author of two books. His first was We Gather Together: The Religious Right and the Problem of Interfaith Politics, and his new book this year is Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right. I was excited to have the chance to talk with Neil about how his oral history interviews changed the project, what differed between his first and second books, and how he wrote a history that was driven by characters.

Hey DTP listeners! I'm sharing an episode of Historians at the Movies, a podcast by Jason Herbert, in which I was the guest historian! If you like what Jason is doing, check out historiansatthemovies.com.  Historians At The Movies features historians from around the world talking about your favorite movies and the history behind them. This isn't rivet-counting; this is fun. Eventually, we'll steal the Declaration of Independence. This week Kate Carpenter drops in to talk about the new film Twisters along with her research on the history of modern-day storm chasing. We get into what they got right, what liberties they took, the role of climate change in the spread of tornado alley, and exactly how crazy are tornado chasers anyway. If you feel it, ride it.  About our guest: Kate Carpenter is a doctoral candidate in the History of Science at Princeton University. Before that, she earned a Bachelor of Journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia and a Master of Arts in History (with an emphasis in public history) from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. In between, she has been a writer, copy editor, designer, screenprinter, farmers' market volunteer and communications officer, and occasional history consultant. When she's not hosting and producing Drafting the Past, she is working on a dissertation about the history of tornado science and storm chasing in the second half of the twentieth century.

I'm delighted to introduce you to my guest today, historian of science Dr. Kathleen Sheppard. Kate is a professor at Missouri S & T University, and the author of three books, as well as the editor of two books of correspondence. Kate is a historian of Egyptology, and her first book was a biography of Margaret Alice Murray, the first woman to become a university-trained Egyptologist in Britain. The second was Tea on the Terrace: Hotels and Egyptologists' Social Networks, which was released in paperback this summer. And her newest book is out right now. It's called Women in the Valley of the Kings: The Untold Story of Women Egyptologists in the Gilded Age. I was excited to talk with Kate about the difference in writing a book for a trade press, how she has found each of her book subjects, her old school research methods, and how her agent coached her in writing for a public audience. Enjoy my conversation with Dr. Kate Sheppard.

My guest in this episode is Dr. Tore Olsson, associate professor of history at the University of Tennessee. Dr. Olsson's first book, Agrarian Crossings: Reformers and the Remaking of the US and Mexican Countryside, is an award-winning scholarly book. But his new book does something quite different. Titled Red Dead's History: A Video Game, an Obsession, and American's Violent Past, the book opens a window on American history through the lens of Red Dead Redemption, the wildly popular video game franchise. I talked with Tore about how his pandemic video game habit changed the direction of his career, how teaching an undergraduate class on this topic shaped the book, and how working with his agent and editor made for a completely different publishing experience this time around.

Welcome back to Drafting the Past. This is a show about the craft of writing history. In this episode, host Kate Carpenter interviewed historian and web developer Dr. Jason Heppler. Kate has been following Jason's work and career path for some time now and was so excited to talk with him about his new book, Silicon Valley and the Environmental Inequalities of High-Tech Urbanism, which came out earlier this year. Jason is a developer-scholar at the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. He has worked on a whole bunch of cool digital projects, which you can explore more on his website, as well as the co-editor of the book Digital Community Engagement: Partnering Communities with the Academy. We talked about the evolution of his work alongside his career, the digital tools he uses in his own projects, the relationship between coding and writing, and much more. 

In this episode, host Kate Carpenter speaks with the brilliant and delightful Dr. Kellie Carter Jackson. Dr. Carter Jackson is a professor of Africana Studies at Wellesley College, and a prolific speaker and writer, with essays everywhere from The New York Times to the Atlantic and Los Angeles Times, and appearances in documentaries and countless podcasts and news programs. She is executive producer and host of the podcast You Get a Podcast: The Study of the Queen of Talk, and a co-host of the podcast This Day in Esoteric Political History. Her resume is extensive, so we're just hitting the highlights here!  Dr. Carter Jackson's first book was the award-winning Force and Freedom: Black Abolitionists and the Politics of Violence. Her newest book is We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance. It's out now, it's incredible, and it's going to have a lot of people talking.

For this episode Kate Carpenter interviews Dr. Margaret O'Mara. Margaret is a professor of modern American history at the University of Washington, and the author of multiple books, including Cities of Knowledge: Cold War Science and the Search for the Next Silicon Valley and Pivotal Tuesdays: Four Elections that Shaped the Twentieth Century. Her most recent book is The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America. I was a huge fan of this book and have recommended it to so many people, so I was thrilled to get to ask about what went into writing it. Margaret has also co-authored a history textbook, written many pieces for places including The New York Times, WIRED, and many more, and is an active public speaker. We talked about how she keeps track of so many different projects, the way her past work in the Clinton administration affects her writing, and much more.

In this episode, I was thrilled to welcome historian—and fellow Missourian—Kimberly Harper to the show. I am especially delighted by this episode because I get many requests to feature guests who have written history books while off of the tenure track or outside of academia, and Kim is a great example of that. I find guests for the show in a lot different ways – sometimes they are people I am a longtime fan of, other times I see books getting some press, or they pitch themselves for the show or other people suggest them. But I also scan catalogs of upcoming books to make sure I'm catching things that might otherwise get overlooked, and that's how I first learned about Kimberly Harper. I spotted her new book, Men of No Reputation: Robert Boatright, the Buckfoot Gang, and the Fleecing of Middle America in the University of Arkansas Press catalog, and got to read an early copy. I was so impressed by the research and storytelling that I knew I had to reach out right away, and lucky for us, Kim agreed to come on the show. Kimberly Harper earned a master's degree in history from the University of Arkansas, and she is an editor for the Missouri Historical Review. Her first book, White Man's Heaven: The Lynching and Expulsion of Blacks in the Southern Ozarks, 1894-1909, came out in 2010, and it received the Missouri Humanities Council's Distinguished Achievement in Literature award. Kim and I spoke about how some key mentors helped her find her way as a historian and writer, how she is learning to balance her day job, writing, and family life, and how you deal with sources for a book in which everyone is lying. Enjoy my conversation with Kimberly Harper.

In this episode, Kate welcomes historian Dr. Nathan Perl-Rosenthal. Nathan is a professor history at the University of Southern California. His first book, Citizen Sailors: Becoming American in the Age of Revolution, came out in 2015. His new book just came out this month, February 2024, from Basic Books. It's called The Age of Revolutions and the Generations Who Made It, and it tells the history of the revolutionary era from 1760 to 1825 across multiple nations and many individual lives. Nathan and Kate talked about the merits of messy outlines, how historians could borrow the techniques of fiction writers, and why his new book was a bit like making cheese – you'll just have to listen to find out what that's all about.

For Episode 40, Kate Carpenter is joined by Dr. Grace Elizabeth Hale. Grace is the Commonwealth Professor of American Studies and History at the University of Virginia, and the author of four books. Her two most recent are Cool Town: How Athens, Georgia, Launched Alternative Music and Changed American Culture, which was published by UNC Press in 2020, and In the Pines: A Lynching, a Lie, a Reckoning, published by Little Brown in 2023. In the Pines is a remarkable book that combines Grace's investigation into her own family's history and her expertise as a scholar of white supremacy to investigate the pervasive racial terror of the Jim Crow South and its lasting impact. Grace joined me to talk about how she put the book together, the joy of great editing, and much more. Please enjoy my conversation with Dr. Grace Elizabeth Hale.

Welcome back to the third season of Drafting the Past! I'm thrilled about the lineup of historians that I'll get to bring to you this year. I know you're going to love them. That includes today's guest, Dr. Benjamin Park. Ben is an associate professor of history at Sam Houston State University, and the author of three books. His first two were American Nationalisms: Imagining Union in the Age of Revolutions, and Kingdom of Nauvoo: The Rise and Fall of a Religious Empire on the American Frontier. His newest book, which came out just this month, is called American Zion: A New History of Mormonism. I was excited to have the chance to talk with Ben about how he tackled a book with such an impressive scope, how he stays disciplined about what to leave in and what two cut, and two pieces of really excellent, practical writing advice from his editors. You'll have to listen until the end for those.

At the end of the year, a flurry of “best books of the year books hit publications. For the last episode of 2023, I wanted to try something a little different on Drafting the Past. Rather than come up with my own best books list, I asked listeners to call in and leave a message with the best history book they read in 2023 (it didn't have to be published this year). I loved hearing about the books you guys have been reading, and I hope you enjoy these reading recommendations, too. Should we make it an annual tradition?

In this episode, Kate spoke with historian Dr. Martha Hodes. Dr. Hodes is a professor of history at New York University and the author of multiple previous books focused on the nineteenth century, including The Sea Captain's Wife: A True Story of Love, Race, and War in the Nineteenth Century, and Mourning Lincoln, which won multiple awards and was longlisted for the National Book Award. Her most recent book, however, has a very different focus. My Hijacking: A Personal History of Forgetting and Remembering, is an account of her experience as a 12-year-old hostage aboard a hijacked airliner in 1970. We talked about what it was like to write such a different type of history book, and the experience of mining her own unreliable archive for information. You'll also learn how she ends up with as many as 20 or 25 drafts and why the best way to start a project is to pick a favorite document and just start writing about it.

For this episode I was lucky enough to speak with a historian and writer I have long admired, Dr. Catherine McNeur. Catherine's first book, Taming Manhattan: Environmental Battles in the Antebellum City, first came out in 2014, and it is one of my favorite environmental histories. So I was more than a little excited to learn about her new book out this year, Mischievous Creatures: The Forgotten Sisters Who Transformed Early American Science. I couldn't pass up the chance to talk with Catherine about how the book emerged out of a different book project, the techniques she uses for bringing place so vividly to the page, and the writing process that results in prose that is such a pleasure to read. Plus, this book has one of the best stories of serendipitous archival discovery I have ever heard.

For this episode, host Kate Carpenter interviews Dr. Tanisha C. Ford. Tanisha is a writer, historian, and professor of history at the City University of New York Graduate Center. She is the author of three books and many articles on subjects at the intersection of politics and culture, and especially on Black fashion and social movements. Her first book, Liberated Threads: Black Women, Style, and the Global Politics of Soul, was published in 2016, and in 2019 she released her second book, Dressed in Dreams: A Black Girl's Love Letter to the Power of Fashion. Her newest book, Our Secret Society: Mollie Moon and the Glamour, Money, and Power Behind the Civil Rights Movement came out just last month. It's a fascinating biography of famed Black fundraiser and activist Mollie Moon that takes readers into the world of an overlooked aspect of the civil rights era. Kate's conversation with Tanisha covers how she brought the world of Mollie Moon to life, her methods for organizing her sources--the "oldest of old school"--and why she's glad she was an English major.

In this episode Kate is joined by historian Dr. Bruce Dorsey. Bruce is a professor of history at Swarthmore College. In 2002, he published his first book, Reforming Men and Women: Gender in the Antebellum City, and he is also the co-editor of the book Crosscurrents in American Culture. His new book is called Murder in a Mill Town: Sex, Faith, and the Crime that Captivated a Nation. In it, Bruce tells the story of the death of factory worker Sarah Cornell, the trial of the Methodist preacher who was accused of her murder, and the public frenzy over the trial and its aftermath. I was thrilled to have the chance to talk with Bruce about how a historian tackles true crime, and our conversation covers how this book originated in a college course, as well as the challenge of weaving historical analysis a gripping drama.

In this episode, I interviewed Dr. Sarah McNamara, assistant professor of history at Texas A&M University, about her new book, Ybor City: Crucible of the Latina South (UNC Press, 2023). From her website: "McNamara is dedicated to sharing her scholarship with broad audiences through public history and community engagement. She developed the project, “Nuestra Historia,” an historical memory and preservation project that unites public art with historical markers within the City of Tampa. The first site of this project commemorated the 1937 Antifascist Women's March of Ybor City and unveiled in Tampa during Women's History Month of 2023. McNamara regularly collaborates with community groups to coordinate history programs that range from historical photography exhibits to educational events for adults and works on K-12 curriculum development and teacher training through organizations such as the National Humanities Center. McNamara's work has received support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Association for University Women, the Institute for Citizens and Scholars, the American Historical Association, and the Tulane Center for the Gulf South. In recognition of McNamara's commitment to teaching and student mentorship at Texas A&M University, she has received the Montague-Center for Teaching Excellence Award, the Early Career Teaching Award from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and Association of Former Students Distinguished Achievement Award for Teaching. Sarah McNamara is a native of Tampa, Florida and her family is from Ybor City." In our interview we talk about the process of writing and rewriting that book. We also talk about the marvels and challenges of doing oral histories—especially with family members—and the ways that Sarah has worked to make sure that the history she writes in her book is also alive in the community of Ybor City.

This episode features Dr. Samantha Muka, whose enthusiasm for her work is pretty much guaranteed to improve your day. Sam's first book is Oceans Under Glass: Tank Craft and the Sciences of the Sea, in which she investigates how a community of aquarium users have created and shared knowledge about how to take care of marine life in captivity. Sam is an assistant professor at the Stevens Institute of Technology, and she is also the author of numerous articles and book chapters about the history of marine science, including essays in Slate and The Atlantic. We talked about how her enthusiasm translates into her writing voice, keeping track of non-traditional sources, and what Sam has in common with a horse (you'll just have to listen to know what that's about).

In this episode, I spoke with Dr. Katrina Phillips. Katie Phillips is an associate professor of history at Macalester College. She is the author of Staging Indigeneity: Salvage Tourism and Performances of Native American History, which focuses on the past and present of three Western performances that purport to show Indigenous history, but do so from the perspective of white settlers. Katie is a citizen of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe. She is also a public historian and consultant, and, to my delight, she has also published multiple children's books about Indigenous history. Our conversation covers the importance of making history accessible, the value of an intellectual community that says things like “this has to be in the book,” and how writing for kids lets her reach a whole new set of readers. 

Welcome back to Drafting the Past, a podcast about the craft of writing history. I'm your host, Kate Carpenter, and this is the 30th episode of Drafting the Past! In this episode, I spoke with Dr. Lauren Lassabe Shepherd about the process of writing and revising her debut book, Resistance from the Right: Conservatives and the Campus Wars (UNC Press, 2023). Lauren is a historian of higher education, and she teaches at the University of New Orleans. We had this conversation early this year when Lauren was still in the process of going over final page proofs, so you'll hear us talking about that stage of publication. But the book is out now, and you can find it at any bookseller. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy our conversation about the hard work of turning a dissertation into a book, interdisciplinarity and imposter syndrome, and how to organize the results of a smash and grab archive trip, something I think a lot of us can relate to. Here's my conversation with Dr. Lauren Lassabe Shepherd.

My guest this week is historian Dr. Anna Zeide. Anna is an associate professor of history at Virginia Tech, where she is also the founding director of the food studies program, as well as the author of two books. The first, Canned: The Rise and Fall of Consumer Confidence in the American Food Industry, won a James Beard award, and her most recent book, U.S. History in 15 Foods, was published earlier this year. Incidentally, reading that book inspired me to plant corn in my home garden for the first time ever, so stay tuned on that experiment. She is also a co-editor of an anthology called Acquired Tastes: Stories About the Origins of Modern Foods. In our delightful conversation, we talked about everything from putting together a writing outline to taking a metaphorical—or literal—wander through the woods as part of the writing process.

In this episode, it was my pleasure to interview science journalist Melissa Sevigny about her new book, Brave the Wild River: The Untold Story of Two Women Who Mapped the Botany of the Colorado River. She is the science reporter for Arizona Public Radio as well as the author of two previous books, Mythical River: Chasing the Mirage of New Water in the American Southwest, and Under Desert Skies: How Tucson Mapped the Way to the Moon and Planets. Her work has also appeared in many places, including Orion, The Atavist Magazine, Science Friday, and more. I spoke with Melissa about writing a book while working a full time job as a reporter, how she created such detailed scenes, and the helpful metaphor she used to think about the book's narrative structure.

For Episode 27 of Drafting the Past, I was delighted to be joined by historian Dr. Carly Goodman. Carly is a historian, a senior editor for the Made by History section at the Washington Post, and the Communications Coordinator for Nationalities Service Center, an immigration agency. Her first book, Dreamland: America's Immigration Lottery in an Age of Restriction, came out in May from the University of North Carolina Press. I was so excited to talk with Carly earlier this spring about her research and writing, how her work as an editor has impacted her own writing, and the excellent craft advice she has to offer other historians.

In this episode, I was so excited to finally talk with writer and historian Dr. Aaron Sachs. Aaron researches and teaches environmental history at Cornell, and he is the author of four books and one edited collection. I've been eager to talk with Aaron for several years, ever since I first heard about the Historians are Writers! group that he led at Cornell (should out to Daegan Miller and Laura Martin who mentioned the group to me). We talked about that and the two books that Aaron has recently published: Up From the Depths: Herman Melville, Lewis Mumford, and Recovery in Dark Times, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Biography. And in April he published Stay Cool: Why Dark Comedy Matters in the Fight Against Climate Change. He is also the author of The Humboldt Current: Nineteenth-Century Exploration and the Roots of American Environmentalism and Arcadian America: The Death and Life of an Environmental Tradition. With John Demos, he also published the edited collection Artful History: A Practical Anthology.

In this episode Kate Carpenter interviews writer and historian Dr. Kidada Williams. Dr. Williams' most recent book is I Saw Death Coming: A History of Terror and Survival in the War Against Reconstruction, which came out with Bloomsbury this year. She is also one of the co-creators of #CharlestonSyllabus, which began as a collection of resources on Twitter in response to the racist massacre at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, and is now available as a collection of readings on race, racism and racial violence through the University of Georgia Press. Her first book, They Left Great Marks on Me: African American Testimonies of Racial Violence from Emancipation to World War I, was published by New York University Press in 2012. In addition to her writing, Dr. Williams is also the host and co-producer of Seizing Freedom, a podcast about African Americans' fight for liberty and equality during and after the Civil War. In addition to being an associate professor of history at Wayne State University, she also makes many public appearances and consults with projects to help the public engage with history. You are guaranteed to walk away from this interview inspired and encouraged -- be sure to share it with a friend!

In this episode, host Kate Carpenter is joined by Dr. Louis Moore. Lou is a sports historian and a professor of history at Grand Valley State University. He has published two books: We Will Win the Day: The Civil Rights Movement, the Black Athlete, and the Quest for Equality, and I Fight for a Living: Boxing and the Battle for Black Manhood, 1880-1915. He also writes essays for many outlets and, along with fellow historian Derrick White, hosts an excellent podcast called The Black Athlete. If that all wasn't enough, he has also produced two audio courses that you can find on Audible, called African-American Athletes Who Made History and A Pastime of Their Own: The Story of Negro League Baseball. We talk about all of that, what he's working on now – and why sports history comes with it's own unexpected set of challenges. For a transcript and links to everything we mentioned in the show, visit draftingthepast.com. 

For this episode, Kate Carpenter spoke with Dr. Andrew Wehrman, an associate professor of history at Central Michigan University. Andrew's first book, The Contagion of Liberty: The Politics of Smallpox in the American Revolution, came out in December 2022, and he has also published many essays and op-eds on the subjects of epidemics, public health, inoculation and vaccination. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and, since our interview it was named a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in history. Our conversation gives an excellent look into the long process of writing this book, and I hope you enjoy listening as much as I enjoyed talking with Andrew.

Host Kate Carpenter interviews author Lyndsie Bourgon. Lyndsie is a journalist and oral historian, and her first book, Tree Thieves: Crime and Survival in North America's Woods, was published by Little, Brown Spark in 2022 and examines the past and present of tree poaching. More broadly, Lyndsie writes about the environment and its entanglement with history, culture, and identity. I was delighted to have the chance to ask Lyndsie about her approach to oral histories in this book, bringing empathy to a complex topic, and how she her background as a journalist and training as an oral historian come together.

Host Kate Carpenter interviews historian and writer Dr. Andrew Simon, who studies media, popular culture, and the modern Middle East and teaches at Dartmouth University. His first book, Media of the Masses: Cassette Culture in Modern Egypt, was published in 2022 by Stanford University Press. Andrew also holds the distinction of being the first Drafting the Past guest who hoped to become a professional baseball player before his career as a historian. We had a great conversation about how to write about sound in history and translate it to the page, the challenges and thrills of creating archives outside of official channels, and how a candid remark from Andrew's grandmother impacted his writing.

In this episode, I spoke with historian, podcaster, speaker, and wellness instructor Dr. Natalia Mehlman Petrzela. Natalia is an associate professor of history at The New School. Her first book, Classroom Wars: Language, Sex, and the Making of Modern Political Culture, was published in 2015. She is a co-host of the weekly podcast Past Present, and also hosted the amazing podcast Welcome to Your Fantasy, about the cultural phenomenon of Chippendales. Natalia's newest book, Fit Nation: The Gains and Pains of America's Exercise Obsession is coming next month from the University of Chicago Press.

In this episode, host Kate Carpenter spoke with historian and bestselling novelist Dr. Deborah Harkness. Deb's first novel, A Discovery of Witches, debuted at #2 on the New York Times bestseller list. She has written three more books in the All Souls Series, including the most recent, Time's Convert, which was published in 2018. Before that, Deb was trained and worked as a historian of science. She is the author of two academic books. Deb also teaches European history and the history of science to undergraduates and graduate students at the University of Southern California. We had a great time talking about the relationship between her work as a historian and as a novelist, the research that goes into her books, and why she believes her fantasy novels are her best historic work.

In this episode, I spoke with environmental historian Dr. Adam Sowards. Adam is a historian and writer whose work focuses on the histories of the environment, public lands, the American West, and much more. He has published four books, as well as one edited volume. His most recent book, Making America's Public Lands: The Contested History of Conservation on Federal Lands, was published earlier this year. Adam has also regularly written for public audiences, everything from pieces in the the Los Angeles Times and Slate to personal essays in literary journals. From 2018 to 2020, he also wrote a column for High Country News called “Reckoning with History.” We spoke about the new directions in Adam's career, how he thinks about public writing as an extension of teaching, and more.

In this episode, Kate interviews Dr. Marcia Chatelain, professor of history and African American studies at Georgetown University. She is the author of two books. The first, South Side Girls: Growing up in the Great Migration, came out from Duke University Press in 2015. The second, Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America, won the Pulitzer Prize for history in 2021. I spoke with Marcia about how she approaches writing history, the reasons Franchise was rejection by some editors, and the lessons in journalism that she learned at our mutual alma mater, the University of Missouri School of Journalism.

In this episode, host Kate Carpenter interviews historian Dr. Abby Mullen, assistant professor of history at the United States Naval Acadmey. In her former role at the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, Abby not only worked on software designed for historians, but she also created and hosted a narrative history podcast, Consolation Prize, which looked at U.S. diplomacy through the lens of the country's consuls. Kate and Abby talk about what it takes to write for a listening audience, the joys of using Tropy to manage primary source research, and much more.