Latest / Arroe Collins Like It's Live / More Than Just A Novel The Stargazer Of Nantucket From Author Julie Gerstenblatt

Transcript

More Than Just A Novel The Stargazer Of Nantucket From Author Julie Gerstenblatt · Arroe Collins Like It's Live

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The coolest thing about modern day technology or storytelling is
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: the fact that you can get it anywhere. But when
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: you go searching for it, how long is that search
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: actually taking place. Well, let me introduce to you Ero
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: dot net, a r r oe dot net twenty different
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: podcasts one place. One of the biggest most popular ones,
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Foody Paradise. Oh, we are talking to the chefs. We
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: are talking to the authors who are all about getting
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: your mind, body, and soul back together again. FOODI Paradise
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Only on ero dot net, r r oe dot net.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Enjoy your exploration, Hiero. Hi, how are you doing today?
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: I am great? Thank you, I'm sure.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm saying very excited to share a conversation with
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: you because you're doing things with Nantucket, with sharing stories
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: that I'm trying to do with my own forest here
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: in North Carolina. And I just think that authors that
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: can bring in the atmosphere of where they are and
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: where they would like to take listeners or readers too,
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: is so fascinating and it's so Americana in the way
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: of Mark Twain. And that's why I think I'm really
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: fascinated by all of your writing about Nantucket, especially the
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: stargazer here because I mean, you just embrace a place
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: where I'm going to go. I want to be there.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: I want to go there, not just in words, I
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: want to go there in person.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: Thank you. That's a huge compliment.
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: I really appreciate it.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: I do feel that my love for.
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: This place, for Nantucket and for.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: Mid eighteen hundreds of America, like you say, Americana speaks
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: to me in a way that that combination of love
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: of place, love of history, and the need to tell
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: a good old fashioned American story sort of about the
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: struggles of a diverse community and a new nation is
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: really where I want to be and I want to
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: take readers there.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: So let me ask you about that about you hanging
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: out in the in the mid eighteen hundreds, only because
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: in this area that I'm in, there's documentation of Native
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Americans that were here back in the fourteen hundreds. This area,
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: I believe that the soil is speaking through me. Do
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: you think it's the same thing for you, that it's
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: the rocks and the trees that called out to you,
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Julie that said you need to share this story because
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: it cannot be lost in history, even if you put
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: it into a storybook form.
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: That's really an interesting point. I do feel like the town,
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: so it isn't so much the nature, but the town
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: center that was built in that seventeen hundreds. Eighteen hundreds
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: in the urgeoning whale and community of Nantucket spoke to
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: me very strongly in the first book. And then it
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: was this clippership era of the eighteen hundreds, like having
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: to get out on the sea and be.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: The fastest and compete with the world to have dominance
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: in the marketplace.
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: That's what spoke to me about this clippership era.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: And then my third one though.
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: It is the nature of Nantucket, which you know we
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: are not there yet.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: It comes out in two years, but it is about
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: the natural.
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: Habitat of the soil. When you're thinking about work that
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: I will get eventually.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: Now, when when you write about like like with with
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: with these the ships and things, do you get to
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: keep any of that as memorabilia, any chunks of it?
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Because I mean I have a piece of the Mecklenburg
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: County Courthouse from one hundred and twenty five years ago.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: I made sure that I went to that site and
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: grabbed that before they destroyed it and removed it and
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: it's sitting in this forest because I just believe that history.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: To me, that's where the stories are and and I
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: think that's that's my connection to the stargazer of Nantucket
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: is that you're you, You are there, and I'm and
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: as a reader and as an author, I'm going, my God,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: this is what I love in life. Books like like this.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: I think history is alive and I think about our
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: legacy all the time because is there a.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: Piece of the place, like physically that I have? Not
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: so much, although I do have a Nantucket lightship basket
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: that was commissioned for me by my aunt when I
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: was twelve years old by a Nantucket artist whose work
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: is in the Nantucket Lightship Basket Museum, Michael Caine.
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: So I do feel like I have a piece of
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: that history. And more my dog, my grandmother had one.
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: My aunt and cousin also have Nantucket lightship basket.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: In your heart as the author, because it had to
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: move through you first before it reached us in our
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: reading moments at eighteen Winifred is on our way to China?
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: Who was she? And is she? In your heart? As
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: a writer, and I never lose touch with those that
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: I write about in my writing. It's like they always
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: live with me. It's like Russell Crowe in Beautiful Mind,
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: they walk with me, and I just feel like they're
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: doing the same thing with you.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: Thank you, Yeah, so Winifred Starbuck is the daughter eighteen
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: year old daughter, like you said, of very successful Steve
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: merchants and a captain husband and wife. Her mother and.
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: Father, Al and Peter Starbuck, who go out on a
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: clipper ship, have gone out for twenty years to China
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: and made their fortune there with he and other goods
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: like the plates that everybody eats off every day, and
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: the drapes and rugs on the floor of all of
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: New England, and the much of America's homes at the time,
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: and all of the beautiful urns that flank the fireplaces.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: So she believes that this is her destiny to be
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: a part of this same family legacy and make her
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: fortune too, and they don't want her to go, so
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: she has a strong desire. And at eighteen, some children
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: don't always see.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: Eye to eye.
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: And what's fun in a coming of age novels, Just
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: as in life, you.
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: Have to disagree with your parents, and you have to
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: streak out on your own, although in this case, her.
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: Stubbornness and feistiness leads her to stow away on her
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: parents' own ship to make her own journey.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: And you know, there's a big side of every one
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: of us that wished that we were her. We would
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: It's like, oh, I would love to let go of
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: my twenty twenty six to go back to eighteen fifty
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: one and become a stowaway because Winnifred did it. I
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: wanted to. And by the way, the name Winnifred, that
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: was my grandmother's name, and that might be another reason
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: why I love this book so much. And my grandmother
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: came from the eighteen hundred, so I just feel like
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: that you wrote about my grandmother.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: That's crazy, that's great. I did hear from the first book.
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: I heard from a lot of Macy's because that was
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: a family name that I used, and people reached out
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: and they were.
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: Like, is your lives anthy mile eyes of Ethy? And
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: I'm sure that I'll hear from some Starbucks this time around.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: But I'm just honoring those families.
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: That did put Nantucket on the map in terms of,
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: you know, the Europeans who.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: Came to this land, that was inhabited by.
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: Natives and the Wankanogs, but turned it into a commercial success.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: Please don't move. We've got more with Julie Gerstenblatt coming
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: up next. The name of the book is The Stargazer
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: of Nantucket. We are back with Julie gersten Blunt. What
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: is that like for you when you do that, when
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: you write about the stories that created a community, because
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: you know, being down here in Charlotte, we're attached to
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: Charleston and we're a Savannah and it's almost like I
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: just want you to come here and write about our
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: people as well. I mean, are they reaching out to
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: you to say, hey, Julie, can you come here to
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: San Francisco. I think there's somebody you could write about
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: That was part of the beginning here.
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: I tell people that they should write like you are,
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: about the place that you love and.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: Not reaching out too much to have me. People do
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: pitch me ideas you should write about this, you should
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: write about that, and I'm like, you should write about that. Yeah,
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: it's on you to.
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: Tell those stories that live so strongly within you.
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: And like you said, Winnifred does stay with me.
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: And my characters do live on in me, which is
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: why I.
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: Linked my characters that I wasn't quite.
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: Done with in the first novel reappear one or two
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: of them in the second one.
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: Just for you, you know, sort of passing.
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: The baton, and I get a chance to revisit those
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: people a few years later.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: Well, one of the connections that my wife has with
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: your stories is that you make it feel like that
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: she's part of your words, that she's sitting right there
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: with you, and you're saying, hey, by the way, as
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: we sip on tea today, I want to tell this
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: story about Winnifred, I want to tell you about Nantucket.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: And it's like, that's a special writer that can make
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: me feel like that we're just having a conversation like
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: you and I are having right now.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: That's that's the magic of That's what you hope.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: Happens with your work. Like I write this book.
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: In isolation in my office, in my pajamas, and I
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: talk to the people in my head, you know, but
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: it doesn't become alive arrow until your wife or you
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: reads it and you imagine your Winifred and Alan Peter,
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: you imagine your stargazer, and it's.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: Just so incredible.
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: You sit on a couch somewhere in your backyard and
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: you are the one who inhabits the world and.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: Makes it come alive.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: How do you research for a project like this, because
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: I mean there's so many different interpretations of history and
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: it's like, Okay, which one do you put your focus
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: on in order to have that stability to you know,
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: cause because you know that there's going to be a
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: lot of people that are going to say I was there,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: I didn't see that, and it's like, let me show
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: you where I'm coming from. But we don't get that
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: opportunity as authors to do that. I just want to
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: show you the inspiration.
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: So that the clippership. The funny thing is nobody can
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: say I got this right or wrong really, because there's only.
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: One clipper ship left in the world.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: Oh and it is in a dry dock in Greenwich
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: outside London, at the Royal Museum Maritime Museum of Greenwich.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: And that clipper ship was built twenty or thirty years later,
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: so it actually.
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: Has like a metal hall instead of a wooden hull,
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: so it isn't.
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: At all like my stargazer.
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: What I did was I templated mine on the Flying
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: Cloud and that was Donald McKay clipper ship that went
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: out in East Boston on June first, eighteen fifty one.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: And I just took that ship and was like, Okay,
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: that's going to.
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: Be my stargazer, and I'm going to follow their journey.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: And I'm going to make that you know, my characters.
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: I kind of kicked off the real people from that
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: boat and put my characters on that ship to try
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: to bring that history to life.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: So there's a combination. You know.
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: I don't have to be wedded to the truth of
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: the Flying Cloud and what happened to it, because I'm
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: telling my own stories through the history and the narrative.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: And that's why I love to write. Oh my god,
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: where can people go to find out more about you
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: and all of your other writing? Because it's summertime, we're
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: looking for books. We want them.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: M thank you. Yeah, So you can go to my
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: website Julie Gerston Blatt dot com.
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: The book is out from HarperCollins.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: You can find it at all of your favorite small
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: independent bookstores and reach tailors the big ones too.
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: And there's also I want to plug.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: The audio book because we have an excellent narrator Aaron Lynn,
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: who is sort of new. I mean, she's been narrating
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: books for young adults, but this is her first. I
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: would say, like big foray into.
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: Adult narration because she has the voice of an eighteen
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: year old.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: In some ways.
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: She was great as Winifred, but she had to play
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: everyone from the captain to the helmsman.
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: Who is an escaped slave on the run at sea,
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: to the first mate, to the mother and captain. So
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: she does all the voices.
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: And I've heard wonderful things.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: From reviewers and I even listened to the whole thing myself.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: Wow. What Wow, that's a journey. That's a journey. Please
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: come back to this show anytime in the future. Ten
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: minutes is never going to be enough because I just
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: have you know, the hardest swells with questions, and you're
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: only living limited to a certain amount of time. But
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: please come back.
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: I will thank you, Erro. Your enthusiasm and support means
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: the world to me. Word of mouth is how this work?
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: That's done?
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: Oh will you be brilliant today?
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: Okay, okay, sounds good.