PODCAST INTERVIEW ABOUT JULIET FISH NICHOLS: Victorian Women Lighthouse Keepers

Podcast about Juliet Fish Nichols and other Women Lighthouse Keepers

March is Women’s History Month and the perfect time to promote KEEPER OF THE LIGHT. It was a busy month. On March 4^th I presented a session about the book to teachers and librarians at the Charlotte Huck Children’s Literacy Festival in Redlands, CA. It included projects done by 4^th graders at a local school that were inspired by the book. (I had met with them earlier via Zoom.)

Last week I featured the book when I did an author visit at Ecole Bilingue in Berkeley. Some of the kids had been to Angel Island. All of them were familiar with the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and loved the illustration of Juliet’s house shaking on the morning of the earthquake. I rang a bell when I read about the fog bell machine.

And earlier this month I was interviewed by Suki Wessling at the Babblery in Santa Cruz about the book and Juliet Nichols, along with two other people who have researched other women lighthouse keepers in California—one of them Juliet’s mother, Emily Fish, the light keeper at Point Pinos, and the other Laura Hecox, light keeper in Santa Cruz. It was fun being interviewed by Suki and sharing stories with author Lynn Guenther, who researched and wrote about Laura Hecox, and actor/interpreter Eleanor Morrice, who portrayed Emily Fish.

The interview was broadcast on Sunday March 26 on the KSQD radio station in Santa Cruz and is now available as a podcast online. (It is an hour long—so you have to be willing to set aside an hour to listen to it.)

Even if you don't have time to listen to all of the program, be sure to read the blurb and take a look at the photos and the links. Try to imagine what it would be like to do all the work of a lighthouse keeper--cleaning, sweeping, polishing, climbing ladders, rowing or sailing a boat, winding up the fog bell machine-- wearing a long skirt and sometimes a bustle!