Literary Aviatrix: The Power of Story - Women in Aviation

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In this conversation with Kitty Banner Seemann, we talk about her spectacular experiences flying as a bush and glacier pilot in Alaska in planes full of mountain climbers, hunters, and adventurers to remote locations in some of the most challenging flight conditions imaginable, all described in her book Wings of Her Dreams: Alaska Bush and Glacier Pilot Kitty Banner.
Buy the book: https://literaryaviatrix.com/book/wings-of-her-dreams-alaska-bush-glacier-pilot-kitty-banner/

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!

• Stay up to date on book releases, author events, and Aviatrix Book Club discussion dates with the Literary Aviatrix Newsletter.
• Visit the Literary Aviatrix website to find over 600 books featuring women in aviation in all genres for all ages.
• Become a Literary Aviatrix Patron and help amplify the voices of women in aviation.
• Follow me on social media, join the book club, and find all of the things on the Literary Aviatrix linkt.ree.

Blue skies, happy reading, and happy listening!
-Liz Booker

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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!

• Stay up to date on book releases, author events, and Aviatrix Book Club discussion dates with the Literary Aviatrix Newsletter.
• Visit the Literary Aviatrix website to find over 600 books featuring women in aviation in all genres for all ages.
• Become a Literary Aviatrix Patron and help amplify the voices of women in aviation.
• Follow me on social media, join the book club, and find all of the things on the Literary Aviatrix linkt.ree.

Blue skies, happy reading, and happy listening!
-Liz Booker

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On the evening of September 4th, 1936 (the same year as the Bendix Air Race, highlighted in last month’s Aviatrix Book Club discussion book, Fly Girls, by Keith O’Brien), Beryl Markham took off from Abingdon, England to become the first woman to cross the Atlantic solo in an aircraft “the hard way” – from East to West.

Equestrienne, sailor, pilot, and best-selling author, Mary Lovell, has published ten books, two of which are about pioneering women pilots. Her biography The Sound of Wings: The Life of Amelia Earhart, was the basis for the 2009 movie, Amelia, starring Hilary Swank and Richard Gere. Her book Straight on Till Morning: The Life of Beryl Markham, which is the Aviatrix Book Club discussion book for September 2022, spent twelve weeks on the New York Times best-seller list. Beryl Markham’s memoir, West with the Night, is a gorgeously written account of her childhood in Africa as the daughter of a racehorse trainer who roamed the bush barefoot with a spear in her hand and follows her into adulthood when she became a well-respected racehorse trainer in her own right, and a skilled pioneering pilot flying as a safari spotter in the 1930s. It ends with a gripping account of her record-setting flight. She reveals very little in that book about her human relationships, though. Straight on Till Morning fills in the very public and scandalous gaps, along with some of her more private forays, in addition to clearing up controversy over whether Markham, in fact, penned her own book. Hers is a fascinating story of an adventurous free spirit, which is well-told in great detail, with meticulous attribution by the author, who you can find at her website, www.lovellbiographies.com.
To stay up to date on books featuring women in aviation, sign up for the Literary Aviatrix Newsletter: https://literaryaviatrix.activehosted.com/f/1

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!

• Stay up to date on book releases, author events, and Aviatrix Book Club discussion dates with the Literary Aviatrix Newsletter.
• Visit the Literary Aviatrix website to find over 600 books featuring women in aviation in all genres for all ages.
• Become a Literary Aviatrix Patron and help amplify the voices of women in aviation.
• Follow me on social media, join the book club, and find all of the things on the Literary Aviatrix linkt.ree.

Blue skies, happy reading, and happy listening!
-Liz Booker

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In this interview with author Kristin L. Gray, she talks about her middle-grade novel THE AMELIA SIX: AN AMELIA EARHART MYSTERY. Set in Amelia Earhart’s childhood home, this is a fun read for ages 8-12 that incorporates quirky characters, fun facts about Amelia, and the rich history of the Ninety-Nines. It’s also a great book for promoting STEM with young girls and boys (my 9-year-old son loved it.)

The blurb: Amelia Earhart’s famous aviator goggles go missing and eleven-year-old Millie has to find them before the night is over in this girl-powered middle grade mystery.
Eleven-year-old Amelia Ashford—Millie to her friends (if she had any, that is)—doesn’t realize just how much adventure awaits her when she’s given the opportunity of a lifetime: to spend the night in Amelia Earhart’s childhood home with five other girls. Make that five strangers. But Millie’s mom is a pilot like the famous Amelia, and Millie would love to have something to write to her about...if only she had her address.
Once at Amelia’s house in Atchison, Kansas, Millie stumbles upon a display of Amelia’s famous flight goggles. She can’t believe her good luck, since they’re about to be relocated to a fancy museum in Washington, DC. But her luck changes quickly when the goggles disappear, and Millie was the last to see them. Soon, fingers are pointing in all directions, and someone falls strangely ill. Suddenly, a fun night of scavenger hunts and sweets takes a nosedive and the girls aren’t sure who to trust. With a blizzard raging outside and a house full of suspects, the girls have no choice but to band together. It’s up to the Amelia Six to find the culprit and return the goggles to their rightful place. Or the next body to collapse could be one of theirs.

Be sure to check out Kristin’s other books: VELONIA BEEBE TAKES CHARGE (middle-grade fiction), KOALA IS NOT A BEAR (picture book), and ROVER THROWS A PARTY (picture book).

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!

• Stay up to date on book releases, author events, and Aviatrix Book Club discussion dates with the Literary Aviatrix Newsletter.
• Visit the Literary Aviatrix website to find over 600 books featuring women in aviation in all genres for all ages.
• Become a Literary Aviatrix Patron and help amplify the voices of women in aviation.
• Follow me on social media, join the book club, and find all of the things on the Literary Aviatrix linkt.ree.

Blue skies, happy reading, and happy listening!
-Liz Booker

Meagan Davis @womenrockwings is a Captain in the Air Force Reserve Chaplain Corps and a new private pilot. She comes from Brooklyn, Southern, and Bajan roots (her father was from Barbados—where I spent two years of my Coast Guard career). She is the founder of Women Rock Wings—an initiative to inspire and connect women in aviation, and to virtually connect women-in-training in study groups to capitalize on the collective knowledge and experience of women learning to fly. She’s been on social media recently, connecting several different initiatives, and, in particular, highlighting Black women in aviation who are making their history right now. In this interview, Meagan and I talk about how storytelling in new media compliments the tradition of books as a medium for inspiring the future of aviation. And she’s giving away a headset this month!

Thanks so much for listening!

• Stay up to date on book releases, author events, and Aviatrix Book Club discussion dates with the Literary Aviatrix Newsletter.
• Visit the Aviatrix Book Review website to find over 600 books featuring women in aviation in all genres for all ages.
• Become a Literary Aviatrix Patron and help amplify the voices of women in aviation.
• Follow me on social media, join the book club, and find all of the things on the Literary Aviatrix linkt.ree.

Blue skies, happy reading, and happy listening!
-Liz Booker