I’ve started doing something fun on youtube this week. Â I run the Renaissance English History Podcast, which currently gets about 120k listeners each month, and I’ve been trying to figure out ways that I can make more of a community out of it. Â Do more episodes, lead tours of England, write books; ways to get people more involved and creative ways to make some money from this huge listenership I have.
So a friend and I are starting a tour company, with our first tour lined up in May on the english choral tradition. Â Now we just need to find 12 people to go along with us.
And I’m working on a non-scholarly book aimed at general readers.
And I can’t really do more episodes than I do now at the moment, because each episode takes me about 15 hours in research, recording, editing, and uploading/pushing it out, updating the various sites and blogs. Â But one thing I can do is simple, easy 3 minute videos on youtube, which don’t take a long time to research or edit, and which I can record even when Hannah doesn’t nap.
So I’ve started the Tudor Minute series on youtube this week. Â Every day, a byte (ha ha, I crack myself up) sized bit of information on something related to the Tudors. Â I can record a week’s worth on Sunday, or do them one day at a time, and they take 20 minutes max. Â Super simple.
Below is today’s on the Parker Psalter, where Hannah makes an appearance midway through. Â It was after dinner and before bath, so she looks a bit like a street urchin.
Follow me on youtube – hteysko – or search for the Tudor Minute to see the rest of them. Â There are 5 so far.
I’m having a lot of fun with this, mostly because it’s something creative I can do with Hannah, and doesn’t require her to be asleep like the rest of my projects do.
Heather Teysko is the creator, writer, and producer of The Renaissance English History Podcast,  the original Tudor history podcast, started in 2009. She's been writing about history online for over 25 years, since her first site on Colonial American history became number one in history on Yahoo in 1998. In 2019 she created Tudorcon, which is now a yearly event, in addition to writing books, and running TudorFair.com - a whimsical Tudor Merch shop.
She has been passionate about Tudor England since she first read Alison Weir's The Six Wives of Henry VIII 30 years ago, and subsequently moved to London after college to spend her time immersed in Tudor history (how exciting when she got to interview Alison for the first time!). In addition to history, she is passionate about travel, and has lived in 3 countries and 4 states (not counting her perpetual state of confusion), and her family (who help her host her YouTube channel occasionally).
