By Liz Booker - Pilot, Writer, Aviation Diversity Advocate
Join Liz Booker as she interviews authors whose books feature women in aviation from across genres, historical periods, and types of flying, and be inspired by the tenacity, adventure, and courage
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In this episode of Literary Aviatrix Classics with guest hosts Dr. Jacque Boyd and Capt. Jenny Beatty, we discuss The Fun of It: Random Records of My Own Flying and of Women in Aviation by Amelia Earhart. This book offers fascinating insights to where aviation was at the time the book was published and how Amelia and her contemporaries imagined aviation would impact the future. We also learn from AE’s own words about her pre-aviation life, her selection and participation in the Friendship Flight as a passenger on a transatlantic flight, and ultimately about her own solo flight across the pond. My favorite parts of the book were her summaries of women’s accomplishments and potential in aviation.
Buy the book: https://literaryaviatrix.com/book/the-fun-of-it/
Did you know you can support your local independent bookshop and me by shopping through my Bookshop.org affiliate links on my website? If a book is available on Bookshop.org, you'll find a link to it on the book page. By shopping through the Literary Aviatrix website a small portion of the sale goes to support the content you love, at no additional cost to you. https://literaryaviatrix.com/shop-all-books/
Thanks so much for listening!
Blue skies, happy reading, and happy listening!
-Liz Booker
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In this Literary Aviatrix Writers' Room interview with Lola Reid Allin, she talks about her writing journey including courses at Gotham Writers in NYC, overcoming the fear of sharing personal details, hybrid-publishing with She Writes Press, book launch promotion, and her lessons learned on the value of critique.
00:00 Book Release: 'Highway to the Sky'
00:25 Finding Your Voice: The Journey of a Writer
18:30 Facing your fears in memoir writing
24:31 Hybrid Publishing with She Writes Press
30:05 Book Promotion
41:25 Lessons Learned - Vulnerability, Critique
48:57 Navigating the Evolving Publishing Industry
49:32 Respecting Privacy: Balancing Personal Experiences in Memoir Writing
50:15 2024 YouTube Close.mp4
Did you know you can support your local independent bookshop and me by shopping through my Bookshop.org affiliate links on my website? If a book is available on Bookshop.org, you'll find a link to it on the book page. By shopping through the Literary Aviatrix website a small portion of the sale goes to support the content you love, at no additional cost to you. https://literaryaviatrix.com/shop-all-books/
Thanks so much for listening!
Blue skies, happy reading, and happy listening!
-Liz Booker
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In this interview with Canadian pilot Lola Reid Allin, we talk about her new memoir, launching on September 17th, 2024.
00:00 Introduction and Book Launch
01:17 Synopsis and Reading
09:28 Lola's Aviation Career
11:59 Transitioning Beyond Flying
16:01 Inspiring Others: Why did you write the book?
17:34 Challenges and Discrimination: Navigating a Male-Dominated Field
32:18 Balancing Motherhood and a Flying Career
39:55 Exploring the World: Lola's Adventures in Travel
49:28 Supporting Women in Aviation: Lola's Involvement with the 99s
51:56 The Importance of Self-Reliance and Education
59:04 Book Release: 'Highway to the Sky'
Here's the blurb:
With females making up just 5% of the world’s pilots, this memoir crosses genres to combine aviation history, the author’s journey from unwanted child to successful pilot, and the feminist experience, and will appeal to multiple aviation communities.
“Don’t be silly! Girls can’t fly,” seven-year-old Lola’s father admonishes her as they fly across Canada on a commercial flight in 1962. She is crushed—but decides he must be right. She’s only ever seen male pilots, after all.
Highway to the Sky begins during the empty zone of women in aviation, a three-decade drought following WWII when men reclaimed the jobs that had been performed by women during the war and forced women back to diapers and dishes, where they “belonged.”
Despite Lola’s childhood desire to avoid the straitjacket of traditional female roles and become a pilot, her desperate need for unconditional affection after a lonesome childhood sways her determination. At age twenty, she leaps into marriage and motherhood. Four years, one toxic relationship, and one private pilot license later, she leaves her husband, even though she knows she’ll be censured by friends, family, and 1970s society at large.
Lola’s head-on battle with tradition continues as the lone female pilot in her advanced flight training program and on the job as a flight instructor, bush pilot, charter pilot, and commuter airline pilot between 1979 and 1993. Flying is challenging at times, yes—but her true obstacles are the hostility, sabotage, and discrimination she faces in her industry. She perseveres, however. Ultimately, flying is what gives her the courage to regain control of her life—and helps
Did you know you can support your local independent bookshop and me by shopping through my Bookshop.org affiliate links on my website? If a book is available on Bookshop.org, you'll find a link to it on the book page. By shopping through the Literary Aviatrix website a small portion of the sale goes to support the content you love, at no additional cost to you. https://literaryaviatrix.com/shop-all-books/
Thanks so much for listening!
Blue skies, happy reading, and happy listening!
-Liz Booker
Send us a text
In this Picture Book Panel discussion, we hear from five recently published authors who navigated various routes to publication including traditional, hybrid, and self-publishing to get their stories into print. They very generously share those journeys with us here—everything from the decision about which route to go, to the editing process, how they found their illustrators, what their distribution looks like, the percentage return they receive on book sales, special military/aviation-related considerations about depicting specific ‘brand’ images, to book promotion and lessons learned along the way. If you’re not writing with the specific niche of women in aviation in mind, the information here will still be of tremendous value as you contemplate your options.
00:00 – 02:49 Intro
02:50 – 06:58 Author Intros
07:00 – 15:08 Manuscript Prep/Edit
15:10 – 18:22 Finding an Artist
18:23 – 24:47 Why did you choose your pub route/timeline to publication
24:48 – 30:33 Distribution
30:34 – 36:04 Promotion and sales
36:05 – 43:05 Percent earnings on sales
43:06 – 47:24 Activity books
47:25 – 53:58 Book Promotion
53:59 – 58:59 Special military and branding image considerations
59:00 – 1:00:05 Lessons learned/advice
If you have a great picture book idea to help inspire the next generation of women in aviation, I hope you’ll pursue it, and I hope this panel discussion helps you on your journey!
A big takeaway from this panel is the importance of community. If you’re writing books featuring women in aviation, I hope you’ll consider the Literary Aviatrix community as yours along your journey, and if you’re not, find your people! The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) is an awesome starting point.
Check out my full interviews with several of these authors and many more in the Aviatrix Writers' Room: https://literaryaviatrix.com/writers-room2/
Show some love for the authors: visit their websites, follow them and share their content on social media, buy their books, and drop a review on Amazon and Goodreads.
Kodey Bogart @helogirlsbook – Helo Girls series – https://www.helogirls.com
Darcy Guya
Did you know you can support your local independent bookshop and me by shopping through my Bookshop.org affiliate links on my website? If a book is available on Bookshop.org, you'll find a link to it on the book page. By shopping through the Literary Aviatrix website a small portion of the sale goes to support the content you love, at no additional cost to you. https://literaryaviatrix.com/shop-all-books/
Thanks so much for listening!
Blue skies, happy reading, and happy listening!
-Liz Booker
Send us a text
Join guest hosts Jacque Boyd, Jenny Beatty, and me as we discuss this out-of-print treasure, Neta Snook Southern’s I Taught Amelia to Fly. Through Neta’s own aviation journey, we get a very special lens into the experiences of aspiring pilots in the U.S. as they pursued their dreams during and after WWI. Her childhood stories emphasize the importance of exposing our girls to science and mechanics as that exposure imbued her with the skills and confidence to not only hold her own in a male dominate world, but endeared her to her peers. Neta also offers us a new and intimate perspective of iconic Amelia Earhart during her formative years as a pilot in training. Since the book is difficult to find, we take you through all of the wonderful and surprising highlights. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did!
Did you know you can support your local independent bookshop and me by shopping through my Bookshop.org affiliate links on my website? If a book is available on Bookshop.org, you'll find a link to it on the book page. By shopping through the Literary Aviatrix website a small portion of the sale goes to support the content you love, at no additional cost to you. https://literaryaviatrix.com/shop-all-books/
Thanks so much for listening!
Blue skies, happy reading, and happy listening!
-Liz Booker
Send us a text
In this interview with author and retired U.S. Coast Guard Captain Martha LaGuardia-Kotite, we talk about her career, which culminated in being recalled to active duty as the Commandant’s Press Secretary, then we get into her books - So Others May Live: Saving Lives, Defying Death; Changing the Rules of Engagement: Inspiring Stories of Courage and Leadership from Women in the Military; and My Name is Old Glory: A Celebration of the Star Spangled Banner. The first two books feature stories of incredibly inspiring women in aviation, including the U.S. Coast Guard’s first qualified female rescue swimmer, Kelly Mogk Larsen and the first Vice Commandant of any U.S. Military service, Vice Admiral Vivien Crea, along with Nicole Malachowski, the first woman Thunderbird demonstration team pilot, Senator Tammy Duckworth, U.S. Army Blackhawk pilot and combat amputee survivor, and Pam Melroy, one of only two women to command a U.S. Space Shuttle.
Did you know you can support your local independent bookshop and me by shopping through my Bookshop.org affiliate links on my website? If a book is available on Bookshop.org, you'll find a link to it on the book page. By shopping through the Literary Aviatrix website a small portion of the sale goes to support the content you love, at no additional cost to you. https://literaryaviatrix.com/shop-all-books/
Thanks so much for listening!
Blue skies, happy reading, and happy listening!
-Liz Booker
Send us a text
In this Literary Aviatrix Classics discussion with co-hosts Jacque Boyd and Jenny Beatty, we discuss Louise Thaden’s memoir, High, Wide, and Frightened, first published in 1938, two years after Thaden won the Bendix in its first co-ed year. This is a quintessential read for every pilot and avgeek, anyone who loves history, and anyone who wants a great story featuring a daring, inspiring woman who is also honest about her fears and mistakes. A beautifully written memoir, it chronicles Thaden’s record-setting flights, including speed, endurance, and altitude, and offers a first-hand account of of the 1929 Women’s Transcontinental Air Race and the 1936 Bendix. Remarkably, Louise is unusual for her times in that she continued flying after having children, and she talks about that experience here. Jacque, Jenny, and I take you through each chapter’s highlights and discuss the relevance of this story today. I hope you enjoy listening to our discussion as much as we did recording it.
Did you know you can support your local independent bookshop and me by shopping through my Bookshop.org affiliate links on my website? If a book is available on Bookshop.org, you'll find a link to it on the book page. By shopping through the Literary Aviatrix website a small portion of the sale goes to support the content you love, at no additional cost to you. https://literaryaviatrix.com/shop-all-books/
Thanks so much for listening!
Blue skies, happy reading, and happy listening!
-Liz Booker
Send us a text
In this Literary Aviatrix Writers’ Room interview with best-selling author Maggie Shipstead we get into the details of her author journey. Maggie is an inspiration for anyone who aspires to be a professional writer. In our conversation, she talks about how a writing course with Zadie Smith during her undergrad at Harvard cemented her path as a writer. She went on to earn an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, followed by a two-year creative writing Stegner Fellowship at Stanford. Her books include the novels Seating Arrangements (2012), Astonish Me (2014), and Great Circle (2021), and a collection of short stories entitled You Have a Friend in 10A (2022). She is the recipient of the Los Angeles Times’ Book Prize for First Fiction, the Dylan Thomas Prize, and Great Circle was short-listed for the Booker Prize and the UK’s Women’s Prize for Fiction. As a travel writer, Maggie has also had articles published in Conde Nast Traveler, The New York Times, and Departures.
Did you know you can support your local independent bookshop and me by shopping through my Bookshop.org affiliate links on my website? If a book is available on Bookshop.org, you'll find a link to it on the book page. By shopping through the Literary Aviatrix website a small portion of the sale goes to support the content you love, at no additional cost to you. https://literaryaviatrix.com/shop-all-books/
Thanks so much for listening!
Blue skies, happy reading, and happy listening!
-Liz Booker
Send us a text
In this interview with author Maggie Shipstead, we discuss her best-selling novel Great Circle. In this sweeping saga, we follow fictional pilot Marion Graves from her feral childhood in Montana where she first encounters a barnstorming pilot team and decides that flying is her life's purpose. She flies as a bootlegger transporting liquor, the flies as a bush pilot in Alaska before joining the Air Transport Auxiliary to fly during the war. Post-war, she decides to fly around the world, North to South, and disappears. The story is intercut with a modern day Hollywood actress set to play Marion in an upcoming bio-pic whose own childhood scars include the loss of her parents in a small airplane crash. Maggie talks about the inspiration for the book and the research that led to this gorgeous novel.
Correction from the end of the interview: we will discuss the book Aviatrix, by Mary Bush Shipko, in the Aviatrix Book Club next month, and THEN we'll read The Fabulous Flying Mrs. Miller in July.
Did you know you can support your local independent bookshop and me by shopping through my Bookshop.org affiliate links on my website? If a book is available on Bookshop.org, you'll find a link to it on the book page. By shopping through the Literary Aviatrix website a small portion of the sale goes to support the content you love, at no additional cost to you. https://literaryaviatrix.com/shop-all-books/
Thanks so much for listening!
Blue skies, happy reading, and happy listening!
-Liz Booker
Send us a text
Welcome to the new ‘Literary Aviatrix Classics’ series, where I discuss books written by and about our aviatrix pioneers with my venerable co-hosts, Dr. Jacque Boyd and Captain Jenny Beatty. In this interview, we get to know Jacque and Jenny, and we announce the subject of our first ‘Classics’ discussion.
Dr. Jacque Boyd is an educator and a general aviation pilot. She has a B.A. in Education, Psychology, and Special Education. In 1979 she was awarded the Amelia Earhart Memorial Scholarship from the Ninety-Nines for her M.Ed. in Aerospace Education. She also holds a PhD in Curriculum Development and Supervision. Her dissertation was a study of math and science education.
Jacque's writing expertise covers several magazine columns, including the Current Issues and Tools for Schools column for Aviation for Women. She also writes extensively for The Ninety-Nines Magazine with the latest contribution being book reviews. She currently does book reviews for several publications and has experienced the fun of ghostwriting.
Jacque is a self-admitted book-a-holic with well over 1000 volumes. The majority of the books are aviation-related and most about women's flight. She also has all her grandfather's education books from when he was a teacher in Kentucky in the late 1800s.
Captain Jenny Beatty is a longtime airline pilot, author, and advocate for women and others underrepresented in aviation.
Jenny’s interest in aviation’s early days stems from being in one of the few families to have three generations of women pilots. Both of her maternal grandparents learned to fly in 1930, and their daughter, Jenny’s mother, earned her pilot’s license in 1945. Following them into the air in 1981, Jenny became a flight instructor, airline pilot, check airman, and flight operations manager, and is rated to fly the B737, B747, B777, B787, DC-9, seaplanes, and gliders. In this portrait, Jenny is wearing her grandmother’s flying jacket.
To join the Literary Aviatrix Classics conversation, Jenny draws from her collection of over 350 books and magazines by and about women and other underrepresented pilots all over the world, including rare early first editions. She is a popular writer and public speaker on historical and contemporary pilot career topics.
Read Jenny’s articles and resources at www.JennyBea
Did you know you can support your local independent bookshop and me by shopping through my Bookshop.org affiliate links on my website? If a book is available on Bookshop.org, you'll find a link to it on the book page. By shopping through the Literary Aviatrix website a small portion of the sale goes to support the content you love, at no additional cost to you. https://literaryaviatrix.com/shop-all-books/
Thanks so much for listening!
Blue skies, happy reading, and happy listening!
-Liz Booker
The podcast currently has 189 episodes available.