Episode 538: The Enduring Mystery of Amelia Earhart with Rachel Hartigan

"My career is not a straight path; it's a lot of happenstance where I just sort of somehow get a job and then figure out how to do it once I'm there," says Rachel Hartigan, author of Lost: Amelia Earhart's Three Mysterious Deaths and One Extraordinary Life.

Today we have Rachel Hartigan, who, yes, is dignified and reputable. She’s the author of Lost: Amelia Earhart’s Three Mysterious Deaths and One Extraordinary Life. It’s published by Nat Geo.

We share an agent, so that was how her book got on my radar. If you’re a relative newb to the Amelia Earhart story, Rachel’s book is a riveting take on the three main theories of Earhart’s tragic death either by castaway, captive, or having sunk at sea in her beautiful Lockheed Electra. Rachel weaves together all these theories with a lean, propulsive biography of a woman far ahead of her time.

She’s written about everything from the genetics of persimmon trees to the long road to women’s suffrage for National Geographic. She is the former editor of the Washington Post's Book World and she has also covered education and culture for U.S News & World Report. You can learn more about her at rachelhartiganauthor.com. Had a lot of fun with this as we talk about:

• Happenstance
• Hard-earned experience
• Breaking down David Grann’s The Lost City of Z
• Modeling a text
• Focusing on clarity
• Being in partnership with the reader
• Being a minimalist interviewer
• Saying yes to things
• Finding something new to say about Earhart
• Why Earhart is still appealing to this day
• Cave Day
• And learning how to sell your story as if you’re telling it at a cocktail party (this echoes Alex Ronan’s quip)

Pair this episode with David Grann's two appearances, Nick Davidson's appearances, as well Cassidy Randall's appearances.