From the Depths of Tragedy, A Story Lived: Circle with Natalie Zett

In this episode, writer Natalie Zett talks about her discovery of a family link to a century-old tragedy and realized that dead is dead, unless it’s not?

This tragedy that killed 844, but somehow was forgotten by history. How did this writer learn to listen to the voice of her teenage great-aunt who perished on July 24, 1915? 

Natalie is an award-winning journalist and genealogy researcher, found a long-hidden mystery in her family’s past. 

The contents of a manilla envelope upended Natalie’s life and “set her on an extraordinary journey shattering her preconceptions about life, death, and family.” After years of painstaking research, literal dead-ends, and wonderful synchronicities, a book was born! Flower In The River is the story of how the ripples from the Eastland Disaster cascaded through four generations of her Eastern European family.

Natalie shares reflections, experiences, and insights from her incredible journey from reluctant author to the teller of a story that only she could hear. What does it mean to dig into family histories with bits and pieces of events not spoken about? How do you listen to the dead? And once the book is written, finding that it requires an unconventional delivery into the world!

LINKS:

• Website for the book, “Flower in the River”:  https://www.flowerintheriver.com/
• Custom Book Cover Design (Kyiv, Ukraine) https://miblart.com/
• Alliance of Independent Authors https://www.allianceindependentauthors.org/ 
• Joanna Penn’s weekly podcast about being an independent author: https://www.thecreativepenn.com/
• Arch Oboler’s Plays
• Arch Oboler Plays: This Precious Freedom – ComicWeb Old Time Radio: 
• Organization devoted to preserving the history of The Eastland Disaster 
• The Carpatho-Rusyn Society exists to perpetuate the living heritage of the Rusyn people
• Reedsy - Crafting beautiful books is at the heart of everything that Reedsy does. We're changing the way books are published by giving authors and publishers access to talented professionals, powerful tools, and free educational content. 
• Carl Sandburg
• "Sacred Ancestors Chant," by Lisa Thiel 
• DailyGood.org (

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Transcript

QUOTE HIGHLIGHTS:

ZETT: “Because the dead and my family don't tend to stay dead. I mean, they, they seem to return.”

 ZETT: “I will say this too with what's going on in the world... because we have deep ancestry in Ukraine...There's a lot of things that are happening right now that I think are significant. And this book is significant because it talks about death and hope."

 ZETT: "... because there's a way where ...you never get answers, but you learn how to ask much better questions and to be comfortable with contradiction and to trust your journey. I think that's the biggest thing and it takes more courage than I have on a given day, but it does happen sometimes."

BENINCASA: “I'd like to end... with Alice Walker:   

'But be nobody's darling,
Be an outcast.
Qualified to live
Among your dead.'

Natalie, you do live among your dead, and in doing so, you bring them to us- you bring them to life.”