Why should you subscribe to Badass Women in History?
As a little girl, history came alive around me.
My father was a US History teacher. Back in the ‘80s, he hosted his honors history class in our living room every week. I would hide behind the couch and listen to sixteen and seventeen-year-olds debate history. They were animated, engaging, and downright cool. Sometimes I’d spend sick days in the back of his classroom listening to lectures, and student history projects filled our house. Some were even interactive in our front yard through performances and demonstrations.
I had a moment at around eight years old. My little brain wondered why no one was talking about women? It was all presidents and wars and treaties and scandals. Of men. All men.
Without realizing it the time, that moment shaped me. I spent the next ten years asking my dad about women in history and researching on my own (pre-internet, thank you very much). My senior project was on women who aren’t given enough credit in history, and I’ve become a lifelong admirer of Eleanor Roosevelt, reading every biography I could get my hands on.
When I tell you HERstory is my entire personality, I’m not exaggerating.
I do not have quirky interests, only very serious obsessions.
Fast forward a few decades when I turned around one day and realized I was living someone else’s vision of my life. As a teen, I was discouraged (ahem, forbidden) from pursuing writing, so I went to school for nine years for a career I wasn’t sure I ever wanted. I didn’t realize I had a choice until I turned forty and healthcare was sucking the life out of me.
I finally had the strength to turn back to my first loves: writing and history. Women’s historical fiction grabbed hold and has never let go.
In my research, I discovered an endless well of incredible stories about women. I kept hearing myself say, “WHAT? Why haven’t I heard this before?” Because women and anyone with a diverse background have been absolutely erased from the narrative of history. And it’s a travesty I aim to correct.
I often wonder how eight-year-old me would have been affected by a story of women. If someone would have taught about Nellie Bly or Victoria Woodhull. I’ve discovered power in their stories over my life, and now I want to share them with you.
In my books and here on Substack, the figures I discuss are wild and bold, whose actions benefitted the lives of all women. And most of all, they lived in such a way that if they were men, we’d be celebrating them in the history books. They were changemakers and heroines. Whether with a quiet life or highly publicized, they broke convention and looked the patriarchy in the face and said, “No, I think I’ll do this my way.”
So please, join me as I open up a world of history where women were inventors, musicians, artists, pilots, fighters, vigilantes, assassins, and everything else you can think of. Where they resisted society’s expectations and thrived despite everything against them.
I hope they inspire you as they have me.
If you’d like to support me, check out my historical fiction books, sign up for my website, or buy me a latte!
