734. Finding Fire Island with Jess Rothschild

Jess Rothschild is a podcaster and journalist, one of the founding writers at Autostraddle, and her latest project is a documentary podcast called Finding Fire Island, about the history of Fire Island, Cherry Grove, and the Pines.

Her prior work includes The Cult of Body and Soul, about SoulCycle, and I love BOTH of these productions. Jess has been writing online longer than I have, and we talk about internet history, the process of making a podcast documentary, and what it’s like to have all your neighbors tell their most juicy, gossipy stories to you. For work.

Finding Fire Island is a unique historical record, and I hope you’ll listen or watch.

Please be advised that you can’t talk about gay history in the US without talking about the AIDS epidemic and the loss of so many people, so this episode is a little poignant at times.

❤ Read the transcript ❤

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Here are the books we discuss in this podcast:

You can find Jess Rothschild on Instagram @JessXNYC.

Links ahoy!

• Finding Fire Island
• The Cult of Body and Soul
• Hulu – Black Twitter: A People’s History
• Hot Takes and Deep Dives – Jess’s podcast
• Caitlin Whyte – Jess’s Sound Designer
• Them
• Autostraddle
• Dads & Daddies

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