Chatting to Rosemary Brown

Chatting to a Friend

Rosemary J Brown is a London-based journalist and author. An avid traveller, she is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a Churchill Fellow.

In her quest to put female adventurers ‘back on the map’ she speaks at the Globetrotters Club, Women of the World festivals, Women's Institute and schools. She helped to organise the first-ever Heritage of Women in Exploration conference at the Royal Geographical Society.

Her book, Following Nellie Bly: Her Record-Breaking Race Around the World was published last month. Journalist Nellie Bly circled the world faster than anyone ever had in 1890. She travelled alone, with just a Gladstone bag, and shattered the fictional record of Phileas Fogg arriving back after 72 days. Awed by her achievement and shocked by its present-day obscurity, Rosemary set off to re-trace Bly's global journey 125 years later. Both of their journeys are captured in the book.

Rosemary volunteers for people seeking asylum, homeless people and community groups. She climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, plays in a ukulele band and escapes to her beloved hilltop village in France when she can. She has lived in Washington, DC, Florida and Paris, France.

The motto she tries to live by is: leap and the net will arrive. Unusual facts: she has no cavities, was married in a shelter for homeless women and named her daughter after a mountain.

We talk about her background, her sense of adventure, her wish to bring female adventurers to the forefront of modern exploration lore and her wish to change the world through her journalism and her charity work.

https://nelliebly125.wordpress.com/

Twitter: @Rosemary-Nellie

Instagram @rosemaryjbrown

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