NAHC BOOK TALK SERIES
The New Amsterdam History Center sponsored the Second event in the "NAHC BOOK TALK SERIES"
with
author Fawn Brokaw Doyle
in conversation with author Lana Holden
about her new book
Salt People of the Cloud Houses: The Story of Sarah Rapalje
A coming-of-age story of a frontier woman but also of the city that would become New York
Purchase the book here.
April 16, 2026
6:30 to 8:00 PM
Please enjoy a video of the program here:
Fawn Brokaw Doyle is a lifelong history nerd and writer with degrees in Communications and Industrial Design. While researching her genealogy, her creative spirit ignited to share the story of her 8th-great-grandmother, Sarah Rapalje. By day, she’s a flatware designer and toddler mom who enjoys traveling, state parks, historic sites, and learning handicrafts, herbalism, and mycology. By night, she is a genealogist, historian, and novelist. Historical fiction is her favorite genre because it’s transportive and connects modern readers with the human experience of history. She loves exploring lesser-known eras and short, intriguing side notes that inspire and deserve a fully rendered story arc. She plans to continue writing historical fiction with that focus. Salt People of the Cloud Houses is her debut novel.
Lana Waite Holden is an author, historian and educator at Sweet Home Junior High School Department of History and Language Arts. Although she lives in the Pacific Northwest, she is deeply interested in the Dutch Colony of New Netherland. Her joy in researching and crafting stories, and her avid interest in the history of women and other marginalized groups, led her to publish the historical fiction work on Catalyntje Trico and her life in New Amsterdam.
The NAHC Book Talk Series is supported by the Kingdom of the Netherlands in the United States, as part of the Dutch Culture USA FUTURE
