Drafting the Past

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 scienc...

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 t...

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 abo...

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 le...

For this episode of Drafting the Past , Kate Carpenter interviewed historian and writer Dr. Einav Rabinovitch-Fox . In addition to teaching history at Case Western Reserve University, Dr. Rabinovitch-Fox has also worked as a public historian and curator, and regularly writes for public audiences in outlets like the Washington Post , Zocalo Public Square , and Nursing Clio . Her first book, Dressed...

In this episode, host Kate Carpenter talks with historian Dan Bouk about his new book, Democracy's Data: The Hidden Stories in the US Census and How to Read Them, how he turns seemingly boring topics into fascinating histories, repeated drafting, and the importance of maintaining a capacity for wonder and communicating that to readers. They also talk about reader feedback, how the book started as...

For this episode of Drafting the Past , I interviewed Dr. Isabela Morales , writer and public historian. She is the editor and project manager of   The Princeton & Slavery Project and the digital projects manager at the  Stoutsburg Sourland African American Museum , central New Jersey's first Black history museum. ​Dr. Morales received her Ph. D. in history from Princeton University in 2019, speci...

For this episode of Drafting the Past , I interviewed Dr. Victoria Wolcott, professor of history at the University of Buffalo . Dr. Wolcott is the author of three books: Remaking Respectibility: African-American Women in Interwar Detroit ; Race, Riots, and Roller Coasters: The Struggle Over Segregated Recreation in America ; and her most recent, Living in the Future: Utopianism and the Long Civil...

For this episode of Drafting the Past , I interviewed art historian (and lawyer!) Erin L. Thompson . Erin's new book is Smashing Statues: The Rise and Fall of America's Public Monuments (W.W. Norton, 2022). She has written many essays and op-eds for a wide range of publications, in addition to regularly being interviewed for her expertise as "America's only professor of art crime." We had a fantas...

For the tenth episode of Drafting the Past , Kate Carpenter interviews historian and journalist David M. Perry . David is the author of many, many essays ( find the whole list here ), as well as Sacred Plunder: Venice and the Aftermath of the Fourth Crusade (Penn State University Press, 2015). More recently, he is the co-author, with Matthew Gabriele, of The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval...

For the ninth episode of Drafting the Past , I interviewed historian and novelist Nishant Batsha about his debut novel, Mother Ocean Father Nation (Ecco/HarperCollins, 2022). We talked about the connections between his training as a historian and his work as a novelist, the bad habits he had to break from academia, and writing for character and story, whether in fiction or non-fiction.

Host Kate Carpenter interviews geographer and historian Elizabeth Hennessy about her first book, On the Backs of Tortoises: Darwin, the Galápagos and the Fate of an Evolutionary Eden (Yale, 2019). We talk about bringing a wide variety of sources and approaches together in a book, how she made Darwin funny, and the benefits of an undergraduate education in journalism.  

Host Kate Carpenter interviews historian Ben Railton about his long-standing online writing, the relationship between blogging and his books, and the surprising impact that Glenn Beck has had on his career.

In episode 6 of Drafting the Past , host Kate Carpenter interview historian Carole Emberton about her new book, To Walk About in Freedom: The Long Empancipation of Priscilla Joyner (Norton, 2022). Tune in to hear about Dr. Emberton's writing and research process, her agent and editor's advice for making her work resonate with audiences, and the craft book that she returns to again and again.

In episode 5, Kate Carpenter interviews historian Mia Bay, author of several books and articles on African American history and co-editor of multiple collections. Dr. Bay's most recent book, Traveling Black: A Story of Race and Resistance (Harvard, 2021), has won numerous awards, including the Bancroft Prize, one of the most prestigious awards in American history writing. We talk about Dr. Bay's e...

For the fourth episode of Drafting the Past , I talked to historian Zachary Schrag . Dr. Schrag is a professor of history at George Mason University. He is the author of three books of history: The Fires of Philadelphia: Citizen-Soldiers, Nativists, and the 1844 Riots Over the Soul of a Nation , (Pegasus, 2021), Ethical Imperialism: Institutional Review Boards and the Social Sciences, 1965-2009 (J...

Kate talks with environmental historian Bathsheba Demuth about her book, Floating Coast: An Environmental History of the Bering Strait (Norton, 2019), her essays, and how she helps readers to feel, see, and even smell the places she's writing about. Listen to learn how she organizes her many forms of research, the writers she's looking to for inspiration now, and what advice she would give to hers...

In this episode, Kate talks with historian and American Studies scholar Davarian Baldwin about his books, In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities Are Plundering Our Cities (Bold Type, 2021) and Chicago's New Negroes: Modernity, The Great Migration, and Black Urban Life (UNC Press, 2007). Listen to find out how Dr. Baldwin gradually came around to narrative writing, how he procrastinates...

For the debut episode of Drafting the Past , host Kate Carpenter talks to Megan Kate Nelson, author of Three-Cornered War (2021 Pulitzer Prize finalist in history) and the forthcoming Saving Yellowstone , about her exit from academia, how she uses fiction for narrative structure inspiration, and why she prefers writing in cafes (unless there's something really juicy happening there).

Coming soon: Drafting the Past, a podcast devoted to the craft of writing history. Hosted by Kate Carpenter, each episode features an interview with a historian about the joys and challenges of writing history.