About this episode

This episode features Michele Hollow discussing her novel Jurassic Girl, which tells the story of Mary Anning, a young fossil hunter who overcame gender and class barriers in the early 19th century.

Middle-grade historical fiction meets women in science in this inspiring episode! In this episode we welcome Michele Hollow, author of the novel Jurassic Girl , a biographical fiction about Mary Anning, the remarkable 12-year-old fossil hunter who discovered an ichthyosaur in 1811. Despite being poor, female, and self-educated, Mary triumphed over the dismissive men of the Geological Society. Michele shares her journey from animal writing and wildlife conservation journalism to crafting this middle-grade biography, discussing her research at the Lyme Regis museum and the challenges of writing historical research with authentic dialogue. Tune in to hear an excerpt from Jurassic Girl where young Mary visits Elizabeth Philpot's library for the first time. What You’ll Learn in This Episode: How Michele Hollow discovered the story of Mary Anning, the pioneering fossil hunter who made groundbreaking discoveries in paleontology despite facing gender and class barriers in 1811 The process of transforming journalism skills into middle-grade historical fiction writing, including researching Lyme Regis and the Geological Society archives to create authentic biographical fiction Why Mary…

People in this episode

Host: Reenita Hora

Guest: Michele Hollow

Topics covered

• middle-grade historical fiction
• women in science
• paleontology
• biographical fiction
• gender barriers
• writing process

Keywords

• Michele Hollow
• Mary Anning
• Jurassic Girl
• historical fiction
• paleontology
• women in science
• biography
• writing process
• Geological Society

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Geological Society

Books & works: Jurassic Girl

Places: Lyme Regis, England

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