Shipstead told the audience she was a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, the recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, winner of the Dylan Thomas Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for First Fiction. Cunningham acknowledged Mintz and Suz Hunt for coordinating the venue and introduced Shipstead. Joanne Mintz, vice president of the organization welcomed attendees and president Nancy Cunningham thanked event sponsor Carlyn Stonehill. She is the award-winning author of “Seating Arrangements,” “Astonish Me” and “Great Circle,” her latest epic novel and a New York Times best-seller which was shortlisted for Britain's coveted Booker Prize. Now my focus - for National Women’s History Month and beyond - is to do what that Pan Am captain did for me when I was a kid: show women and people of color all the great opportunities afforded by careers in aviation.Members and guests of the Literary Society of Desert welcomed novelist and travel writer Maggie Shipstead to the April 7 luncheon at Bighorn Clubhouse. I also learned about the industry from the inside, working for two airlines, two aviation nonprofit associations and an aircraft engine manufacturer.Īfter more than 25 years in the industry as a journalist and communicator, it never gets old. I attended the three major air shows, got close-up looks at the world’s manufacturing plants and flew on almost every commercial aircraft in the world. I traveled the world as an aviation journalist and had really cool experiences. I joined Women in Aviation International and connected with women doing amazing things in the industry. Other topics covered included the financial health of the airlines, updates on aircraft and engine manufacturers, and issues concerning the world’s airports. My first story was about how the FAA’s NextGen would be implemented by the year 2000. I was an associate editor at the now-defunct Commercial Aviation News, a trade publication. In 1992, it happened - I discovered there were actually publications that would pay me to write specifically about aviation. I wrote about how TWA used prison labor to handle reservations and how Florida and the city of Miami helped employees affected by the shutdowns of Pan Am and Eastern Airlines.
My boss knew about my fascination with aviation and assigned me industry-related stories. Our house was on the final approach for Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, and I’d sit in the grass for hours watching planes over my head and on the ground.Īfter college, I worked for a Washington, D.C.-based newsletter that covered topics including employment, training, education and economic development. My father was assigned to the Pentagon in 1978, and we lived at Bolling Air Force Base in southeast Washington, D.C. I helped friends and family book flights when they wanted to travel. My father bought me books about the airlines, including “Airlines of the United States since 1914,” by R.E.G. My mother taught me about Bessie Coleman and other black aviation pioneers. I was a geeky kid anyway, but I started reading about the airlines and aviation history after that experience. You should fly the plane.” He gave me my wings, and I went back to my seat. I mentioned that I would love to fly on a plane like this again. The captain was very kind, showing me all the equipment needed to fly the then-new jumbo jet, even allowing me to sit in his seat.
When it came time to board, the flight attendant took me up to the cockpit of the Pan Am Boeing 747 that was taking us to London. Our New York cousins, also well-dressed, met us at the airport. My mother had my sister and me dressed in our Sunday best, complete with hats and white gloves. It was a big deal at the time, because most Americans didn’t even know anyone who had flown on a plane. Kennedy International Airport to London’s Heathrow Airport. But as a military family, the government paid for us to fly from New York’s John F. Traveling by air then was a luxury reserved for the rich. My father got an assignment to the Royal Air Force Mildenhall base, about 80 miles north of London. My love affair with aviation began in 1970, growing up as the daughter and granddaughter of Air Force officers when there weren’t a lot of black ones at the time.
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