Hello everyone!
As the first ‘regular’ post of the Door Key Podcast Substack, I thought I'd let you all know a little more about me:
I've been interested in history as long as I can remember. But I find myself drawn to the more social side of history than dates or battles. While I do think dates and battles are important, I find questions like ‘When did Catherine of Aragon realize she'd lost Henry VIII’s love to Anne Boleyn?’ or ‘Just what exactly was Aaron Burr's deal?’ to be what really fascinates me about history.
This is the lens that I view history from on Door Key Podcast, and how I’ll be viewing history here on The Door Key Podcast Substack.
📚 History Books I Love
One of my favorite historical books is The Five by Hallie Rubenhold. It tells the story of each of the five victims of Jack the Ripper. The subject is dark, but I'd never read anything about the lives of these women before this book - the information just wasn’t out there! These women’s stories had been kind of lost to history, overshadowed by the story of the Ripper, and I was so glad that Hallie Rubenhold finally told their story!
I'm currently enjoying these two historical books:
The Radium Girls by Kate Moore. This book tells the story of what happened to the women who worked painting watch dials with Radium in order to make them luminous.
Hero of Two Worlds by Mike Duncan. This book is a biography of The Marquis de Lafayette. Lafayette was a French Marquis who was instrumental in helping the Americans win the Revolutionary War, and then went back home to help France become independent - he truly was a hero of two worlds!
So as you can see, I’m interested in all different eras and subjects when it comes to history. Door Key podcast is about all different people, eras, and things in history, and The Door Key Podcast Substack will be too!
And Now for Something Completely Different:
Here’s my favorite picture we took of The Northern Lights this last weekend!
When history meets true crime…in 1912!
In 1912, an entire family and two friends were found murdered in their home. They were all bludgeoned with an axe. The killer was never found.
I love history, but I’m also a big fan of all things Spooky and True Crime. So I jumped at the chance to team up with Traci and Jeremy from the Total Conundrum podcast to talk about a famous historical True Crime case: The Villisca Axe Murders!
Traci and Jeremy are great, and they were the perfect people to discuss this topic with! I had such a good time talking with them, and I think you’ll really enjoy the episode!
Listen here or on any podcast app:
Thank you Steph of Coffeelike Media
There’s a lot going on lately at Door Key podcast and it’s all really, really exciting! The wonderful Stephanie Fuccio of Coffeelike Media has started editing Door Key episodes! The first episode that she’s edited that you’ll hear will be the one released on June 6th, and I can’t wait for you all to hear them! It’s amazing how much the quality of the episodes has improved because of her!
There’s the obvious, like how much better the episodes sound, but there’s a lot of other things she’s been helping me with - like the substance of the episodes, that as a listener you won’t be able to see, but they’re invaluable, and make a huge difference to the quality of Door Key episodes. You even have Stephanie to thank for this Substack - it was at her suggestion that I started it.
If you or anyone you know is looking for someone to help push your podcast to be the best it can be, I highly recommend reaching out to her.
Coming up on the Door Key Substack
I’ve mentioned that one of the things I’d like to do here is talk about historical shows and movies. This will be a paid subscriber feature, free subscribers will get a preview of these posts until they become to a paid subscriber.
May 16th: The Netflix series Bridgerton comes out, so as a way to thank you all for subscribing, and in hopes of starting this off on the right foot, the conversation we have about Bridgerton will be open to everyone! I’ll make a special Bridgerton post that we can all talk about the show on - be on the lookout for it!
So that’s it for this post. I think this is a good place to start this Substack. I’m really excited about everything that’s happening, and I look forward to hearing what you think about this Substack, and also about the podcast!
You can always reach me at doorkeypod@gmail.com
xoxo, April
Thanks again to Stephanie Fuccio of Coffeelike Media for her wonderfulness as a human being, and her talent. You can find her here: Steph Fuccio
Love hearing about your motivations for starting the podcast. I loved The Five too!