From Daughters of Nantucket to The Stargazer of Nantucket. Writers in Our Backyard: A New Chapter

Editor's Note | June 2026

When we first sat down with Julie Gerstenblatt for our Writers in Our Backyard series, her debut novel, Daughters of Nantucket, had received an enormous response from her readers.

Our conversation ranged from childhood memories of stories and the discipline of a writing life to the responsibility writers carry in asking the enduring question: So what?

Since then, Julie has continued to chart an ambitious literary course. Her second novel, The Stargazer of Nantucket, expands her fascination with history, human resilience, and the untold lives hidden beneath familiar narratives. It is a reminder that the writers in our communities are not standing still; they are evolving, risking, questioning, and returning to the page with new stories to tell.

In celebration of this latest milestone, we're revisiting our original conversation with Julie.

What is your earliest memory of being drawn to stories—not

necessarily writing them, but recognizing their power?

My mother read to my brother and me every night — chapter

books, one of us on each side of her. I still remember the night a

scene from The Mouse and the Motorcycle made my brother

laugh so hard he fell off the bed.

My mother was a teacher who understood that imagination comes first

Every summer we went to the library, checked out books, and

wrote about them. And then there was my aunt, who invented a

character called Uncle Maxtub and would call me on the phone

to relay his latest adventures. It was pure entertainment, pure

imagination. Story was everywhere in my childhood — and it

never really left

One of the themes of Daughters of Nantucket is what happens

when women must reconcile the lives they've built with the

lives they once imagined. Why does that particular tension

interest you as a storyteller?

Nantucket was a particularly interesting place for women —

they could build businesses and enjoy freedoms that women

inland simply couldn't. Once I learned about that agency, I

wanted to explore what they would actually do with it. I knew

early on there would be three women, three points of view —

that was my earliest version, a book that was never published.

Then an editor gave me feedback that changed everything: this

story, she said, starts at the meeting.

You're working with three women, three distinct voices and

perspectives. How did you begin to understand each woman as

separate from the others? Did one character form before the

others, leading the way to the "discovery" of your main

protagonists?

Eliza arrived first, before I'd toured a single home or done any

research. Maria was the hardest to crack — everything about her

is so scientific, and I'm really not into science. I first saw her in a

portrait at the library: rigid, stern, unyielding. I remember

looking at her and thinking, how are you and I going to figure

this out? Then I found letters — sisters writing about Maria playing

whist, laughing, holding court when the harbor froze and no one

could get boats across. Suddenly she was human. Loose enough

to talk to me. History books clean everything up; the letters gave

me back the real woman — lustful and mean and gentle all at

once.

Meg came with sympathy built in from the start. Pregnant in

July, the most accessible of the three. Her relationship with

Benjamin felt easy and true. The harder work was writing her as

someone denied what the others had freely — not intelligence,

not education, not ambition. Meg has all of that. What she is

denied is access. She wants the American dream and uses

education as her means of getting there. Writing from inside

that injustice gave her everything — and made her, in the end,

the most urgent voice in the book.

Nantucket functions as far more than backdrop in this novel—

it's almost a character unto itself. What drew you to this island

as the essential setting for this story?

I've been going to Nantucket since 1978 — a week or two every

summer with my family. I loved it deeply, but I never considered

it for a novel. I was working on romance and mystery until my

second agent couldn't sell my second book and said simply: write

the historical one. No one has done that story. There's a hole in

the market. Write about the great fire.

It was a significant risk on multiple fronts — writing historical

fiction for the first time, telling the story from the point of view

of a woman of color, bringing a real historical figure to life, and

then deciding she was gay. Maria Mitchell had extraordinary

success, broke every barrier, and left almost nothing on record

about her love life. That gap was mine to fill. She took her

Vassar students west in tents to study the stars. Someone, I

thought, was probably gay in Nantucket in the 1840s.

The island itself demanded the story.

Have you found that your understanding of what makes a story

worth telling has changed over time? What matters to you now

that perhaps didn't matter when you first started writing?

Yes, and being published clarified it in ways I didn't expect.

It's not that every story needs to justify its existence, but

publication asks something of you: there has to be a reason. A

purpose. The messages have to run deeper than the surface, even

when the story feels entirely grounded in real life.

There has to be a "so what?"

Entertainment can be enough sometimes — but in historical

fiction, in serious contemporary work, something larger has to

be driving it. My second book carries a global ambition — the

Opium Trade, clipper ships, lives that could end any day at sea.

That kind of weight changes you as a writer. You can't easily go

back.

My publisher now asks for the book club questions before the

manuscript is finished. At first that felt like a constraint. Now I

understand it as a compass — it keeps you writing toward

something that matters.

You balance teaching, family life, and writing. How do you

protect the time and mental space needed for creative work?

What does a sustainable writing practice look like for you?

The foundation was built around my children's school day — get

them on the bus, write from nine to two. I still keep those hours.

Morning is when the work happens.

Yoga gives me the physical counterweight — clarity,

groundedness, a body that isn't just sitting at a desk. I keep a

notebook tracking my daily word count, not as pressure but as

proof. The one thing that pulls me under is promotion. After my

first book sold, I didn't write for a year and a half — book talks,

appearances, the machinery of publication. I wasn't productive

and I knew it. Now I protect the morning hours the way I

protect everything else that matters. The work comes first. The

talking about the work comes after.

What role does reading play in your writing life? Are there

books or writers who continue to shape how you think about

craft or what a story can do?

Reading is critical — I never believe people who say they want

to write but don't read. Writers have to read. I taught this to my

students: you have to read as a writer. You can borrow

something, be inspired by an idea, and the more you read the

more you understand how certain genres handle certain tropes.

Reading always helps me stylistically.

Early on it was big sagas —

The Thorn Birds, Danielle Steel. Romance has always been part of

me.

What do you hope readers carry with them after finishing

Daughters of Nantucket? Not necessarily a "message," but

perhaps a feeling or question that lingers?

I want readers to see Nantucket differently. For anyone who has

walked Main Street, stood at the harbor, felt the particular

quality of light there — the island will mean something new. I

want the book to be immersive, a great escape.

But also a quiet reorientation — the kind that lingers after the last page, when you find yourself thinking about who built this place, who was kept out, and what it cost.

Since We Last Spoke

Julie Gerstenblatt's second novel, The Stargazer of Nantucket, has recently made its debut, continuing her exploration of historical fiction through richly drawn characters and immersive settings. Readers who admired the emotional depth and sense of place found in Daughters of Nantucket will undoubtedly be eager to discover where Julie's literary journey leads next.

We extend our warmest congratulations to Julie on this exciting new chapter and look forward to following the stories still to come.