Read and Write with Natasha
This podcast discusses writing life, reviews books, and interviews authors and industry professionals.
Read and Write with Natasha
Documenting the life of the first Arab woman author
Andrea Emily Stumpf shares the extraordinary story of documenting the life of her great-great-grandmother, Sayyida Salma, the first Arab woman to publish memoirs.
We delve into her groundbreaking life, from defying cultural norms in the 19th century to her marriage to a German man, and her lasting impact on Arab and women's studies.
Andrea also discusses her collaborative translation effort with her German-born mother, bridging cultural gaps to preserve Sayyida Salma's authentic voice.
From the challenges of self-publishing to the creative freedom it offers, this episode explores the historical and personal motivations behind bringing her books Memoirs of an Arabian Princess and Letters to the Homeland to a wider audience.
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People find the book very enjoyable. To read both books, I spent a lot of time balancing accuracy with readability, so I really want it to be a story that people get caught up in. Her German is quite beautiful, so I wanted the English to reflect that as well.
Speaker 2:Hi friends, this is Read and Write with Natasha podcast. My name is Natasha Tynes and I'm an author and a journalist. In this channel, I talk about the writing life, review books and interview authors. In this channel, I talk about the writing life, review books and interview authors. Hope you enjoy the journey. Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of Read and Write with Natasha. I have with me today Andrea Emily Stumpf, who's a US-based international lawyer and an award-winning author. She recently published two new translations of her great-great-grandmother, who lived in the 19th century. Her name was Saeeda Salma, who published her memoirs under the name Emily Gouter, and the name of the memoirs were Memoirs of an Arabian Princess, and they were published in German in 1886. And this was the first book ever published by an Arab woman. All right, so, andrea, so nice to meet you. Thank you for joining me today.
Speaker 1:Nastasha, thank you so much for having me and allowing me to have this conversation with you and share with your listeners. It's really a pleasure and I appreciate it for Saida Salma especially. Thank you.
Speaker 2:Of course. So, andrea, you are the great-great-granddaughter of Saida, correct? That's right? And so you stumbled upon her memoirs in German and you decided to translate them from German to English. Is that correct?
Speaker 1:I wouldn't say stumbled. But first let me confirm she is my great-great-grandmother. Okay, I am through a line that is entirely through the women, so from her to her youngest daughter, to one of her daughters, to my mother, to me. So I think we can at least say that it's unambiguous. It's all through the women which feels very powerful to me, feels very powerful to me.
Speaker 1:I have known about Saeeda Salma for as long as I can remember, but growing up as a child she wasn't someone that we really talked about in the family or that we even knew much about. So in a way it came later that I really started to connect to her and become more aware of what a special ancestor I had and what a special time she lived in. Zanzibar's influence in the Indian Ocean and that whole geography in the 19th century and also Oman's influence in Zanzibar is something that I certainly wasn't taught in school and most people probably don't know about. So it was quite a revelation for me to learn about that history and to look back at that ancestry. We actually took a trip to Zanzibar in 1998. So that's quite a while ago and that was really before Zanzibar was a known tourist destination, and that was really before Zanzibar was a known tourist destination and of course it was before the internet and before all sorts of easy travel.
Speaker 1:So we got there just as the interest in tourism was building and in fact our visit was extremely well received because they saw us as a connection to Sayyida Salma and even perhaps a way to increase their tourism. So we were almost royally received. We're just normal people, but they had a welcoming party, they took us around the island and had a program for us for an entire week. We had visits with ministers, we even had a state lunch with the president. It was really quite the experience, very unexpected for us. But that also really galvanized my interest in Saeeda Salma and it was shortly after that that I in fact just gave it a try. I tried to translate her memoirs because I wanted to get to know her and I thought the best way was to really look at the words that she had put on the page for us. So really since then I have been increasing my awareness and knowledge of my ancestor, the way many others have also gotten to know her.
Speaker 2:So, okay, so she's from Omani, descent from Oman, and she grew up in Zanzibar. And then she met your great great grandfather, who was of German descent, correct, that's right? Okay, yes, and so she married him, and then she changed her name to Emily Wute, which is the last name of your great-grandfather, correct, great-great-great-great-grandfather, great-great-grandfather. And then she moved to Germany after. Okay, so how did her family receive the fact that she was marrying a European man, you know, let's say, a non-Arab, non-african man? How was, and that was, you know, a long time ago, when probably that was not that common.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's actually a very important question because I was going to say it sounds so easy that she married a German and moved to Germany. It was actually quite a bit more dramatic at the time in her experience. I mean, you're absolutely right, that was a period when that just didn't happen, right, it was totally unthinkable. And not just that, you know, if you're Muslim you would even consider interacting, especially as a woman. Interacting with men generally was not allowed. Certainly, you know, for the royal princesses, interacting with a Christian was just, you know, just out of line completely and was just out of line completely. So it's quite fascinating that she first got to know him and then essentially fell in love with him and decided and by then she was 22, so she was already a bit older and probably should have been married by then but she decided that she would continue her life with him.
Speaker 1:But she did get pregnant and ended up having to leave the island, basically flee the island, because the rumors were out there and the sultan, her half-brother, knew that it couldn't just continue, that something would have to happen. So maybe you know the expression. She was essentially told that, or at least the rumor was that she would be asked to go to Mecca. You know I'm putting quotes around that, because really going to Mecca meant that she would not come back. So she knew that her prospects were very poor to continue in Zanzibar in her current condition and she escaped the island. Then she tried once. It didn't succeed.
Speaker 1:But then at the end of August in 1866, she walked into the ocean, got onto a boat which took her to a British warship, the High Flyer. A British worship the High Flyer. And from there she ended up in Aden and waited for nine months, had the child and then her husband joined her in May of 1867. And on the same day, may 30th 1867, he arrived, she was baptized to become Christian, took the name Emily, which was the name of the woman who helped her escape the island, the wife of the British consul at the time. And then she married and became Emily Rüthe. And on that exact same day they basically took all their belongings with the infant, with the child Heinrich, and they left by sea and by train to go all the way to Hamburg.
Speaker 1:And in effect, you know, I think she was escaping for her life and for her child's life by that time and I would say it's appropriate to say she essentially self-exiled herself because after that point she was an infidel, she was an apostate, she had no way back. And today we think of religious freedom. But that really wasn't a concept back then. It was not acceptable for her to change religion and it was clearly not acceptable for her to be with a foreign man. So the rest of her life she never was able to really reconnect with the family she had had to leave then Wow, I mean that required a lot of courage from her side to pull that off.
Speaker 2:I mean, like some woman to this day won't be able to have this courage. So I have the book here with me, and so when you found the book, it was already written in German by her. And how did she publish it in German? Did she have a publisher, a German publisher? How was the process for her?
Speaker 1:So we don't have a lot of details of the actual process, but we, I mean, I think the first thing to say is yes, it was a German publisher. I think it's actually quite significant that a German publisher was willing to publish her book. I give the Germans a lot of credit for doing that. Doing that, she says in her preface to the memoirs very clearly that her original intention was to write for her children, and we know from the description that she put in the manuscript that is now translated in Letters to the Homeland.
Speaker 1:In that manuscript she tells us that for the first years she didn't share her history with the children.
Speaker 1:They didn't know any of this history and it was only when the children went to school and others like school kids talked to them about this princess ancestry that the children themselves realized that their mother was a princess and had this extraordinary, you know, beginning in her life. So she, I think, at that point realized that she should share with her children what her life was like, and she was also really had very poor physical health and was afraid that she wouldn't survive. So she wanted to write it down for her children so they would have it for later. So she wanted to write it down for her children so they would have it for later. That is how the memoirs began, as a document for her children, a description for her children. It was only later, maybe 10 years later, that she was then persuaded to publish for the public so that it could be a description that everyone would be able to benefit from and read everyone would be able to benefit from and read.
Speaker 2:So you decided to translate it from German. And you know you have an American accent, right? So I'm assuming you grew up in the US, but you kept your I guess, the German language alive because of your origin, or how did that work for you? How did you manage to you? You manage to keep your German.
Speaker 1:It's a good question and in a way, I feel very fortunate because it really positioned me perfectly to do a translation, because I have the German and the English. So, yes, english is my mother tongue. I've mostly grown up in the United States. I do all my professional writing and my other writing in English, so doing a translation into English made a lot of sense for me. English is my playground, but I was born in Germany and I have German parents, and so I was raised speaking German and even though we moved to the United States when I was one year old, german was my first language.
Speaker 1:I continue to speaking German, and even though we moved to the United States, when I was one year old, german was my first language. I continued to speak German. We would go to Germany frequently. My mother's a German teacher or was in a high school. I even took German from her. They made sure that the German was very intact. And the other thing that I think has really helped with the accuracy of this translation is that I did it together with my mother, who is native German, who came over, you know, in her 20s. So as a joint project, it was really wonderful that we could combine the German heritage that we have with the English and American life that we are living and create that bridge for her original publication to be more available in an English-speaking audience.
Speaker 2:So Saida is pretty much unknown, let's say, outside of the German world. Has anyone talked about her in, let's say, the English-speaking or the Arabic-speaking countries, to your knowledge?
Speaker 1:Oh yes, absolutely. In fact. Let me put it this way From a Zanzibari perspective. And if you go to Zanzibar, chances are you will see postcards and probably the books. And there's a museum there, princess Salma Museum. It's a private museum. There was also a public museum which had a dedicated room for Sayyida Salma.
Speaker 1:So if you go to Zanzibar she's very present. She's really a historical figure in that context. And many Zanzibaris who study their own history know of their sultan history, that Arab period, including the harem and the whole sultanate. Through her writings she has given us a record of that history that is very unique, very unusual and very detailed. So in Zanzibar she's very present.
Speaker 1:She's also, I think I mean her memoirs I view as a national treasure of Oman.
Speaker 1:So many, many Omani people know of Saida Saima. When I go to Omani events and people discover that I have this ancestry, I'd say most people have heard of her, know at least something about her story and often ask me for a photo because they're so interested in her and so appreciative of her. So for Oman too, a very important record of the Oman history in her memoirs and her publications that they would not otherwise have accessible in the same way. And then the other thing is that she is the subject of a lot of scholarship a really surprising amount for someone who published a book in the 19th century. The scholarship interest in her academic interest has grown essentially exponentially through the 80s, 90s and into the 2000s, and if you do a search you'll find many articles about her that kind of reflect on just different aspects of her life. So it's very interesting too that she is a known figure in many circles Arab studies, african studies, women's studies because of her extraordinary background and the fact that she left us her memoirs.
Speaker 2:You know, I think it would be a good idea to write a historical fiction about her life. I think maybe that should be your next project. I think that would you know be faceted Actually.
Speaker 1:I have an opinion of that. First of all, there are some fictions that are out there, ah, and they derive significantly from her life. However, for me personally and I don't mean to cast dispersions on what others have done, but I am very hesitant to fictionalize anything about her life or to even speculate. And I say that partly because I just respect her too much to kind of create a life that may or may not have anything to do with what she actually lived or who she was, but also because she left us her writings, and they're beautiful, they're very detailed. They're very detailed, they're very insightful. It's almost like why would we write the fiction when we should just read what?
Speaker 2:she wrote. I think because you can commercialize it and it becomes more accessible, I think if you turn it into fiction. I think that's pretty much the idea, because some people are hesitant to read a memoir but if you present it in a kind of fiction package they're more willing to pick it up her life.
Speaker 1:that's also honest about aspects where we don't have insights. You know that is not trying to create a person other than the person who she really was, and much of that she gave us, and then some of that, of course, is lost to history. We do worry, you know. We don't want that really seamy, you know, sexy whatever film that might come out someday which could be a real distortion of who she was. There's so much more to what she thought about and what she experienced than those highlights of her life. So if you do decide to do it, natasha, then you know you know, please do her full life.
Speaker 2:So yeah, uh, well, I'll let you do it, but because you've already done the research, but okay. So, like for anyone who's listening or or watching, uh, just uh, the backstory of how I met andrea was that I went to the Gaithersburg Book Festival. It was a rainy day and I saw this banner outside your table that said the first published female Arab author. And of course I couldn't help but stop by your booth or by your table and see, like, what's the deal here? So you have this here and I know some people can get a bit picky about who's the first published female Arab author. And how can you for the skeptics I mean, I believe you, but for the skeptics how can you back the claim that she was the first published female Arab author?
Speaker 1:Well, to be honest, and first of all, I think my marketing worked because I did want to attract people like you, so, thank you. To be honest, I'm putting it forward as an assertion and maybe with a question mark attached to it, because I agree with you. It may even be hard to document and truly know, but I have spent many years now following her and asking the question of many people some academics, some Omani, other Arabs who might have some knowledge, and I always probe is there someone earlier? And there are definitely assertions. People say that she's the first autobiography from a woman in East Africa, or she's the first female publisher in Zanzibar. But those were always qualified. So I was like, well, who else would have been before her? Her circumstances were certainly extraordinary, and so my point is that no one has ever come to me to say, oh, here's someone earlier. And until someone comes to me and says, no, no, it was this other woman who was earlier, I will keep saying it. So to all your listeners, if there is someone earlier, let me know. Recently I put a question into ChatGPT because I thought, okay, let's see what ChatGPT says about this, and I was given the name of an Arab female author who published a few years later. So I essentially wrote back to ChatGPT and I said, hey, what about Saida Salma and her memoirs of an Arabian princess? And so I actually had ChatGPT tell me that they recognized their mistake, that there was an earlier woman, in other words my ancestor, and as I pushed, is she then the first? Of course. Then ChatGPT backed off and said well, you know, it's really hard to tell. And so, yeah, we don't know of anyone earlier, but not that that should be the authority, but until now I don't know of anyone earlier.
Speaker 1:Maybe I should also add this important piece of information about Sayyida Salman. She not only did the unthinkable in marrying a Christian and leaving for Germany, she also did the unthinkable by teaching herself secretly to write. So girls in that environment were taught to read Basically they were reciting the Quran and boys were taught to read, were taught to read Basically they were reciting the Quran, and boys were taught to read but also to write. And so in some ways it's kind of part of her extraordinary history that she actually on her own, secretly even though it was taboo, it was not allowed on a shoulder blade of a camel used the Quran to figure out how to write and taught herself as a young girl how to write Arabic.
Speaker 1:With that kind of a history, it's not too surprising to me that she truly seems to be the first Arab woman to publish a book. She already showed early on that she was very unusual in that regard, but she published it in German. She did. But it follows a history of having been writing in Arabic. She still wrote letters to her Arabic family when she got to Germany, and when I say family I mean all her half-brothers and half-sisters, of which there were many in the Sultanate. So in a way she was a literary, she had a literary propensity and then became a literary figure through the publication, only to say there's a history there, okay.
Speaker 2:So my understanding and we're going to make it there was you also had published another book, and so what's the difference between this book and the second book that you have? So this one is Memoirs of an Arabian Princess and this is her own writing in German that you translated into English. So what's the second book and what's the difference? So can you see that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, Second book is Letters to the Homeland, and this was also put out by me as a new translation and similarly has some helpful essays, short essays at the front and the back. So, as I explained, she wrote the memoirs for her children describing her life in Zanzibar and then ended up publishing in 1886. After that book came out. She apparently at some point after that, probably around the 1890s, the early 90s, wrote another manuscript that no one in the family even knew about. She did not share it with her children. They discovered it after her death among her belongings, and it was called Briefe nach der Heimat, which translates letters to the homeland, and it was a description of the early years, her first experiences in Germany after she had made the transition, and so this document was then typed up by the family. So it appeared as a handwritten document. There's more than 600 pages of handwriting across front and back, very extensive manuscript that she left behind. They typed it up, they were looking at having it published, but never found a publisher during their lifetimes. This document was then translated into English and became part of a volume that was published in 1993. So it first appeared in the world. You know, for purchase for people to read in this volume in 1993 that also included the memoirs from Professor Emery Van Donsel. And then the original German appeared in 1999 in a book that was published by Heinz Schneppel so a German. But both of those books the German one, is out of print. The other one is actually very expensive now. It's really an academic volume. So what I've done now is taken the letters to the homeland and provided a new translation which is meant to be easy to read and highly accurate and, in paperback format, is hopefully now accessible to an English-speaking audience worldwide.
Speaker 1:The manuscript is actually it's tough reading because it was a very difficult life in Germany. Because it was a very difficult life in Germany, she really went from one calamity to another, and that included with her husband. She had three children, but after three years he very tragically suddenly died in an accident and at that point she was then not only challenged by all the cultural change and the way she was othered and treated in Germany, but she then had to do it on her own without her husband. So the Letters to the Homeland is an extremely interesting, somewhat raw and just kind of riveting description of the challenges she faced during those early years in Germany, and it's a very interesting companion book. You see a very happy life, a good life in Zanzibar, and then you read this very difficult life in Germany and it's all from her. She wrote all of it and it's just so insightful because it compares the East and the West and we really get to experience the life that she then had when she made the transition.
Speaker 2:Did she ever wonder if all the sacrifices were worth it?
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, natasha, you need to read the book, you know, because the Letters to the Homeland was a manuscript that was left behind, it was never edited, right, it was never prepared for publication, and that's why I say it's raw and it's also somewhat repetitive, right, someone might have edited out some of the repetition, but what we have is this very authentic description of what she was going through.
Speaker 1:And to your question, all the time she asked herself that question over and over again and she realized that it was kind of crazy. You know, she was so dedicated and devoted to keeping, to staying in Germany, to raising her children in Germany, in the memory of her husband, the way that she thought her husband would have wanted it, and she did it at every cost, to her health, to her mental sanity. It was so difficult and she was always like, you know, can I keep going? Can I make it? Is this the right thing? And she never, she never gave up on the idea. She, she, just she made it work. She pulled through the things we do for love, absolutely, and even, you know, after his death in the memory. It's kind of incredible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she kept it alive. So, okay, I want to pivot a bit and talk about your publishing journey. So how did you? Okay, so you finished the translation. Your mom, who's a native speaker, helped you edit it. And then how did you publish this?
Speaker 1:So let me start by saying I had published two professional books earlier. So I'm an international lawyer, I work on structuring international partnerships and I had published two guidebooks. And I had looked to work with a publishing company and I had some interests Oxford University Press. Perhaps there would have been others but I realized that the way I wanted to do the book was not the way they wanted to do the book, and so I decided to do it as a self-publication.
Speaker 1:And I discovered in the process of doing those professional books that I loved the experience.
Speaker 1:I loved the writing, I loved the creativity, I loved the layout, I did lots of images, I made it pretty.
Speaker 1:It was such a great experience that when I was ready after those two books to pick up, I thought, okay, now it's finally time I'm going to do the memoirs and I set a time frame for myself and I wanted to make sure my mother would be available to work with me. So I just was pretty clear from the beginning that I wanted to do it my way. I wanted it to be a pretty book, I wanted it to be an accurate book, an accessible book, and I also felt the historical pull. I wanted to do the book for my ancestor, so it really felt like I had this privilege to do it. So my journey was basically a self-publication journey. For both of these and anyone who asks me, I'm more than happy to tell them how amazing it is today in terms of what we can do for self-publishing, what we can do for self-publishing. You know the platforms that we have available and how worldwide the reach is to be able to do this kind of publication.
Speaker 2:Did you do everything yourself or did you hire a team of like designers and editors?
Speaker 1:Yes, to be fair, I mean when I explain to people what I think is necessary, it's a small team. I think anyone who wants to self-publish you should definitely have a copy editor. My copy editor didn't actually have that much to do because my drafts are really quite clean. I put a lot of time into it and as a lawyer, I'm pretty careful about what I write. But still I needed someone to take another look at it and give me some guardrails. I think the most substantial part of it was the graphic design, the layout and the ability to really give it a professional look and to follow the specs. But I had a graphic designer who was very open to what I wanted. So I was like I'd like to use this border at the top. I have these photos. I'd like to put it here in this order. I'd like to make it a little ornate. Please put these lines. You know. So we worked together, but it was still very much my ability to shape with someone who supported the real professional look of the book.
Speaker 2:How did you find the?
Speaker 1:designer Through the copy editor and I found the copy editor through the World Bank, which is where I spent many years working, someone who had helped World Bank staff over time. You know I live in the Washington DC area, they're in California, but that worked beautifully. It was, you know, all online and they were super support. It's been the same team for every book that I've done. The last step, of course, is proofreading. So it's also good to have a professional proofreader do that last step.
Speaker 1:But everything else, I must say, it's not always easy. You know how do I upload it on Amazon, how do I upload it on IngramSpark. I'm working on the audio book now. I did the ebooks earlier. You know every step of the way. I kind of have to teach myself. The biggest weakness, I think, is the marketing. I'm much better at writing the books and putting them out than doing the actual marketing, and that, of course, never stops. That could take a lot more of my time, but I'm still. I'm very happy with the way the books turned out and I'm so excited to make them available internationally, easy to read, easy to access and to really spread the word of what Saeeda Salma had to share with us.
Speaker 2:So how was the marketing for you and how were you marketing and what was the reaction to the book so far?
Speaker 1:So in a way I was already plugging into an existing market. As I mentioned before, there are quite a few people who are already familiar with her. It's a somewhat recognized name and that was helpful in some ways, but also a bit of a challenge. If you do a Google search for memoirs of an Arabian princess, you will find at least a dozen and more reprint editions that are paperbacks of her, of different translations, historical translations. So in a way I'm competing with all the books that are already out there.
Speaker 1:But I do have a way to distinguish this book and the whole reason that I put these books out is because the old translations are not very accurate. The 1888 translation, which the family authorized, is actually quite good, but it's somewhat sloppy and there are things that are missing. You know key sentences here and there and it's also a little bit of 19th century language. It's a little old-fashioned in the way that it's written. The other translation from 1907, which was Lionel Strakey's translation, is a complete distortion and I translated before.
Speaker 1:I compared it to his translation. I didn't want to be affected by the other translations and I was actually shocked at how different his quote-unquote translation of her memoirs was, to the point where I was like I have to publish this. Most people pick up the reprint of his translation and have no idea. Maybe they don't even realize it's a translation, but they certainly aren't aware that it is very different from the book that she published. So, in a way, I'm not only kind of competing with those books, I'm actually trying to replace the historical translations because I feel like we should hear her voice as accurately as possible and, like I said, that was my goal.
Speaker 1:What was the reaction of 2022. The letters came out at the end of 2023. I think I can very confidently say that first reactions have been wonderful. People find the book very enjoyable to read both books very enjoyable to read both books. I spent a lot of time balancing accuracy with readability, so I really want it to be a story that people get caught up in. And her German is quite beautiful, so I wanted the English to reflect that as well.
Speaker 1:I also appreciate that for many people it's a kind of surprising view of history. It teaches them a piece of history that they had no idea about the whole Indian Ocean, 19th century experience, this extraordinary trip. We know about explorers who went from the West into the East, livingston and Stanley that were exploring East Africa. Well, here we have a woman, not a man, who's actually going from the East to the West and it is a kind of exploration right. She crossed over into the West and crossed those borders and she's telling us things about the West that are really interesting to hear.
Speaker 1:Just like an explorer studying East Africa, she's studying the West for us and she's comparing it to her Arab upbringing, to her Muslim upbringing, to her African setting, and she's like, wow, why do Germans do this? That's kind of strange and I actually like the way we do it. So her writings are full of those comparisons which I think readers today. My sense is that they are very appreciative of this other viewpoint and kind of caught up in thinking about, in a way double thinking, our very common experiences in the West, like, yeah, there are some strange things about how we do things.
Speaker 2:So the way I found about the book was at Gaithersburg Book Festival. So that's like one marketing tactic that you did. What other marketing tactics you've been doing that have been helpful, that you would recommend to other aspiring authors?
Speaker 1:So certainly my book is on Amazon. Having it on a platform that's essentially international is one of the key steps. That allows me to also think about marketing to an international audience beyond Amazon, because, of course, many locations either don't have Amazon or don't prefer to use Amazon. I also put the book on IngramSpark as a wholesale distributor so that I can make the book available. So, for example, much of the research that I was able to do is in the Netherlands. The major family collection is in Leiden, so I could go to a bookstore in Leiden and say here, this book is really of interest to your population here, because so much of it is here in Leiden, could you carry this book? And they're not going to get it from Amazon, but they will get it from IngramSpark, so it allows me to have a way for bookstores and other distributors to pick up the book.
Speaker 1:I have a website that describes the books and also the translating process. It also gives examples of how the old translations are not as accurate, and on that website I recently started a blog. So now I'm providing a monthly blog where I describe the relevance of Sayida Sama's writings for today, and I now look for you know, at book festivals and wherever I can, I look for people to sign up for the newsletter that distributes the blog monthly. So those are small ways in which I'm trying to get the word out. A lot of it is word of mouth. I use LinkedIn as well, so I have a lot of interest coming through LinkedIn. That has surprised me. I use that as my professional platform, but I'm also using it here and it's just kind of fascinating how many people pick up on it all over that. Of course I don't know who they are, but I'm grateful for their interest and then they spread the word further.
Speaker 2:That's really nice. So what does the future hold for you in terms of more writing project? What are you working on?
Speaker 1:Well, certainly I think I should amp up the marketing as much as possible. My sense is that these two books are relevant to the general public as well as scholars, but I also would really like to see it become material in a college and probably also high school setting. There's so many interesting themes and topics for young people to think about as they learn about themselves and the world around them. So I hope to do something that is also educationally oriented, perhaps an educational guidebook that will make her writing relevant to high school and college level students.
Speaker 1:This year happens to be 100 years after her death, so she died in 1924. So this is her centennial. So later this year I'm intending once I finish the audiobooks hopefully soon my next step will be to put together a centennial edition that will be a compilation of the two writings, the two translations. So I have the two paperbacks now. So I would put that in one book with some additional translating and maybe a couple more essays. So an expanded version that would be a centennial version for this year and beyond that. I think there's kind of an endless number of possibilities as to where to take what she left for us. I feel like I'm just starting it's amazing.
Speaker 2:I mean, I really enjoyed chatting with you and knowing more about her, and I'm sure everyone who's listening or watching is going to find this fascinating. Annie, how can people reach you through your website, email, social media? What's the best way to reach you for those who are listening or watching?
Speaker 1:Yes, and let me encourage that, because I'm very interested in hearing people's thoughts, creating dialogue around the things that Saida Salme has left us. So probably the best way is, through my website, to go to wwwsaidasalmecom. You can also get there with emilyrutecom. On the website there's a contact space so you can put your contact information there. You can also reach me through my hotmail address, andrea E Stumpf. The E, of course, is for Emily, so Andrea E Stumpf, s-t-u-m-p-f at hotmailcom. Either way, it would be really exciting to hear from others and I'm open and interested in doing other discussions. You know supporting book groups, presentations Some I do historically about that period in history and some I do more about her. So wherever the interest lies, I'm very interested in spreading the word Great.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you very much, Andrea, for joining me today. I learned a lot and, for anyone who's listening or watching, thank you for joining us for another episode of Read and Write with Natasha and until we meet again.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much. Thank you everyone.
Speaker 2:Thank you for tuning in to Read and Write with Natasha. I'm your host, natasha Times. If today's episode inspired you in any way, please take the time to review the podcast. Remember to subscribe and share this podcast with fellow book lovers. Until next time. Happy reading, happy writing. Thank you.
