Note: Any links to bookshop.org are affiliate links. If you purchase books through these links, DTP gets a small percentage that helps to support the show.

I want to make sure that you didn’t miss my interview with Megan Kate Nelson earlier this week, an episode that we cheekily dubbed A Very Special Episode. Megan was my very first Drafting the Past guest back in February 2022, so it seemed only fitting that she be my first return guest. And she brought the juice. Since we had already talked about her writing process in the first episode, we agreed to go deep on the publishing process this time around. She got into all the details we don’t usually see—what her book proposal looked like, feedback from her editor, the occasional frustrations of the publishing process, and the five failed proposals she tried before landing on her next book deal. If you’ve ever wanted to know what it’s really like to be a historian who writes for a trade press audience, do not miss this episode.

And there’s A Very Special Announcement at the end, too.

A little history: When I was planning to launch Drafting the Past at the end of 2021, I brainstormed historians whose writing I admired (and, let’s be honest, who might say yes) to invite on the show. I can’t remember exactly when I first met Megan, although it was undoubtedly at the Western History Association conference. I had admired her from afar since I first started reading her Historista blog back in 2016, when I was starting my MA program. As a fledgling historian interested in a career as a full-time writer, I was inspired by Megan’s trajectory and loved her blog voice. At some point, I got to know her a little bit in person, and found her to be just as delightful—not to mention generous in mentoring new writer/historians.

I also loved Three-Cornered War, and it had been a finalist for the Pulitzer earlier that year. I reached out to ask her to be my first guest (alas, my initial request is lost to my now-defunct university email address), and was thrilled when she said yes.

That interview was everything I’d hoped for the new podcast—candid, enthusiastic but realistic about the writing process, full of concrete details about how Megan brought history to life on the page.

In the years that followed, Megan was one of DTP’s most enthusiastic cheerleaders, and her support helped me keep going. She listened to every episode and often texted me her reactions. We went on our pal Jason Herbert’s podcast together to talk about Kevin Costner’s questionable Western epic. We continued to chat about writing and the history book business, and I thought of her first as a mentor and, eventually, as a friend.

We quickly realized we had a shared obsession with not only history and books, but also with the history book industry. We chatted about book deals, freelancing, and how the media covered history books. And as we became more and more frustrated about how nonfiction history books—especially well-researched and well-written books—got short shrift in the dwindling world of book coverage, we started to think about how we could help. We love history books. We want more people to read them. We want more people to write great ones.

For what we landed on—well, you’ll have to listen to the episode. And there will be lots more details to come. But I’m grateful that I asked Megan to be my first guest, grateful she said yes, and grateful to all of you for listening—whether you’ve been here since episode 1, you’re just joining us now, or something in between.

Here’s to history worth reading!