The Roman Road Project - The Famous Nerd Author Visit

I don't really remember when science/history writer Sam Kean reached out to me, but it was at least a year ago. I got an email from him randomly. Since I was familiar with his books, I kinda thought it might be a joke. But, for real, the New York Times best-selling author of The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements and Caesar's Last Breath: Decoding the Secrets of the Air Around Us was really contacting me. Terri Gross interviewed him for Fresh Air (you can listen here.)

Sam writes my favorite type of book, non-fiction stories about technical science, but because they are stories, you want to read them; in fact, you can't put them down. You can tell he was a journalist at some point in his career. Authors like Jon Krakauer, Erik Larson, Daniel James Brown fall into this category too, and I love them! Sam also has his own podcast (also called "The Disappearing Spoon") about nerdy science stuff, exactly the kind of thing I like to listen to on my daily walks. By the time of his visit, he had been writing for a podcast called "Against the Odds," one of my favorites. The series he wrote was about a New Orleans Navy captain named Oliver Naquin whose submarine sank on a training mission in 1939 and was rescued by a diving bell, the first of its kind.

According to his first email to me, Sam was writing a book about experimental archaeology. He had found my name and Website because I'm a member of ExArc, an international organization and community dedicated to sharing work about archaeological open-air museums, research on material culture, and all things related to the field. Sam and I chatted on the phone for a long time about all the projects I incorporate into my Roman Technology curriculum, and he asked if he might visit my class at some point. We played email tag for a long time after that until he could finally nail down a time to visit. He wanted to see our Roman road project in action.

During his visit in February, Sam tried out writing with squid ink on papyrus. I also showed him how to make ink from oak galls. In this picture, he's writing "Fourscore and seven years ago..." (the first line of the Gettysburg Address). I wondered if he wrote that phrase a lot for testing out pens and other writing tools. Every time I test out ancient writing tools, I always use "Arma virumque cano..." (the first line of the Aeneid), or "Odi et amo" (from Catullus 85). Everyone has their line, I guess.

During his three-day visit, Sam was a trooper. He never complained about the mud at our build site, or my loud but charming students, or the absolute chaos of my classroom, every wall of which was lined with muddy rubber boots. And despite being stuck in my classroom for over an hour in a school-wide lockdown (a kid was having a medical emergency and needed to be loaded onto an ambulance none of which we knew at the time of the actual experience), he never panicked and even agreed to talk to my students about his craft during the lockdown. The kids thoroughly enjoyed asking him questions about his books and travels. He told them about his visit with Janet Stephens, the "hair archaeologist" who reproduces ancient Roman hairstyles using authentic tools and methods. When they asked him whether he would be writing about our Roman road, and he responded with an enthusiastic yes, you could hear the hushed excitement. 

It was so gratifying to have a writer I admire for his nerdiness (and I mean that as a total compliment) want to talk to ME about MY nerdy work. And I fully expect him to feature his visit to my Roman Technology classroom in another episode of "Against the Odds: School Lockdown."