The Two Nerdy History Girls Chat Is Now Online. Also, Other Matters.

So there are these long stretches of time when you don’t hear from me . . . and then I inundate you. This ought to be the last one for a while at least.

Our most recent Two Nerdy History Girls chat is now online. You can watch it on YouTube here.

Susan Holloway Scott and I had a wonderful time—again—chatting with Meena Jain and readers about nerdy historical matters. We talked about 18th and 19th century travel quite a bit, and the dangers and discomforts thereof. I also mentioned a couple of nerdy history resources I’ve made frequent use of.

The Epicure’s Almanack: Eating and Drinking in Regency London, ed. Janet Ing Freeman. This is one of the books I might never have found on my own, so I’m grateful to author Candice Hern for calling my attention to it. If you don’t follow Candice on Facebook, you might want to start. She offers all kinds of fascinating historical material, including items from her amazing collection.

Paterson’s Roads (yes, that’s the correct spelling). Though I managed to get my hands on a crumbling 1830s edition, you will find many editions online. You can read an interesting blog post about it here at the Public Domain website.

save the date image with flowers

Detail adapted from a kimono design in Yachigusa by Ueno, Seikō, 1901, Smithsonian Libraries colection

Coming Attractions

Meena Jain has very kindly invited the Two Nerdy History Girls for a return engagement on 17 June at 7pm.

She’s also invited me to join—this time in person—another cast of stellar authors for a RomCon in the spring.

Romancing New England RomCon 2024 - Romance Authors Festival at the Ashland Public Library, Ashland Massachusetts, on Saturday 18 May from 10-4pm

If you’re in the area, I hope you’ll attend. We have fewer opportunities to talk to readers in person these days, and Meena Jain and her team organize an especially enjoyable event.

More official posts will appear as we draw closer to the dates.

P.S. And for all the kind readers who signed up for this blog after the 2NHG chat: Due to deadline and then a flurry of catchup activity, combined with my own technological incompetence, I wasn’t able to update the subscribers list until today. Some of you may want to check out the blog post just before this one, wherein the fate of the third Difficult Dukes book is revealed.

The Two Nerdy History Girls Return. Again.

Once more, Meena Jain, of the Ashland Public Library here in Massachusetts, has invited Susan Holloway Scott and me for a session of nerdy history. Susan and I retired from writing Two Nerdy History Girls blog posts a few years ago, but the blog is still there. Every so often, I pay a visit, to look up this or that.

Our Zoom event, though, offers us time to take questions from our readers. It’s fun for a number of reasons. We never know what subject will come up. Sometimes we get to debunk myths. Sometimes we find ourselves in that grey area of “it depends.” But being nerdy history girls, we love the challenge. In my case, it can get my brain out of the Work-in-Slow-Progress* and onto Something Completely Different. I hope you’ll join us. Here is some useful information:

Virtual - The Two Nerdy History Girls Ride Again!

Wednesday 10 January 2024 at 7pm ET

You’ll find event details here.

You can register here.

You can get in touch with Ashland Public Library via this email address.

One other Ashland Public Library note: Saturday 18 May 2024 brings Spring RomCon from 10-4pm. I will be there, along with a stellar cast of authors. If you think you’ll be in the area, you might want to mark your calendar. More info to come.

* Very nearly done!

Two Nerdy History Girls on YouTube

Corset maker fitting customer with a corset

La M. de Corsets, ca 1832, anonymous, after Numa, Rijksmuseum.

We talked about cleanliness and chamber pots. We talked about corsets. Yes, we always seem to talk about corsets. We talked about nursing mothers and wet nurses. We talked about getting from one place to another and the state of the roads in England and in 18th century America. We talked about other things.

Our listeners asked questions and helped us out from time to time when our nerdy brains failed to provide a detail. Susan Holloway Scott and I had fun, and the time passed quickly. All went smoothly because we have a terrific host in Meena Jain, Ashland Public Library Director.

Scene on London street of quarreling coachmen and general chaos.

Miseries of London by Thomas Rowlandson

You can watch the proceedings here at the Ashland Public Library’s YouTube channel.

Images: La M.de de Corsets, ca. 1832 : Cést de la vrai (...), anonymous, after Numa, c. 1832. Rijksmuseum.

Miseries of London, Jam of Coaches. Ackermann, Rudolph, 1764-1834 (publisher) Rowlandson, Thomas, 1756-1827, (printmaker). Published/Created:[London] : Pubd. Feby. 1st, 1807 by R. Ackeman [sic], No. 101 Strand, [1 February 1807]. Courtesy Lewis Walpole Library