Jonathan Thomas (00:21)
Welcome to the Anglotopia podcast where we explore British travel history and culture and I'm your host, Jonathan Thomas. A few months ago, I had the pleasure of appearing on a get as a guest on one of the longest running and most beloved Tudor history podcasts out there. The Renaissance English History podcast hosted by Heather Teysko also known as England Cast, link in the show notes

Heather interviewed me about why Americans fall in love in Britain and it was a wonderful conversation. So when I got the chance to turn the tables and have her on the show, I jumped at it. So Heather Teysko is in many ways a pioneer. She started the Renaissance English history podcast back in 2009, back when ⁓ a little blog called Anglotopia was started just about making it one of the longest continuously running independent history podcasts at a time when most people still had to have the word podcast explained to them.

She's built it from a Labor Day weekend experiment into a full giant community of books, online summits, merch shop, a Tudor planner, and her greatest creation, TudorCon, the world's first Tudor history convention of which this year Anglotopia is a sponsor. More on that later. Which brings hundreds of enthusiasts together every autumn for three days of talks, music, food, and dancing and genuinely joyful Tudor nerding out. And I am delighted to share that Anglotopia is one of the-

Heather Teysko (01:28)
Okay.

Jonathan Thomas (01:40)
proud sponsors of TudorCon 2026, taking place October 23rd through the 25th in Richmond, Virginia at the wonderful Agecroft Hall, an actual authentic Tudor manor house, which was disassembled piece by piece and moved to America by a really rich guy. So more on that shortly. So Heather, welcome to the Anglotopia Podcast. It's great to have you on our side of the microphone.

Heather Teysko (01:42)
Yay!

Yes.

Yeah, thank you. I'm glad to be here. Thanks for having me and thanks for being a sponsor of TudorCon.

Jonathan Thomas (02:08)
We're really excited about it. I've I needed an excuse to go to Agrecroft Hall for years and now I have it so

Heather Teysko (02:09)
You

You do.

It's amazing. Yeah, it'll be great.

Jonathan Thomas (02:17)
So let's go back to the beginning. Your love of Tudor and Renaissance history goes back even before the podcast. You mentioned that it started with singing early music in high school and college choirs. Tell us about that. How does a teenager and choir end up obsessing over 16th century England?

Heather Teysko (02:29)
Yeah.

Well, I was a nerd. ⁓ I'm still a nerd. So there was that. But no, high school chamber choir, we sang William Byrd's Ave Verum Corpus, which is a beautiful piece, one of his most poignant pieces. William Byrd was writing, we're just gonna go right into the history here, okay? So William Byrd was writing at the court of Elizabeth I. Elizabeth was a Protestant. William Byrd wrote this Ave Verum Corpus, which Ave Verum Corpus is Latin for hail true body. And it's what you said during

the mass when the cracker part was being consecrated, hail the true body of Christ. it refers to the fact that Catholics believe that it's actually the true body of Christ that comes in. And that's like the miracle of communion and the host. And this was a big deal because in the Protestant Reformation, there was this whole argument. Henry VIII killed like hundreds of people, thousands of people because of transubstantiation. The idea that the Protestant belief that it's just a metaphor, ⁓ but it's not actually the true body and the

Catholic belief that it is. So William Byrd was writing Catholic music in Latin about transubstantiation while he was writing Protestant theological services for Elizabeth I and for her church. Now something about that really spoke to the teenager in me that was like, nobody understands my deep dark soul and the secrets and then nobody's ever going to understand what's in my soul. I had this idea that William Byrd was like, in this

of course you kind of hear it's almost like an apology for it's so poignant. And I just remember my choir director was talking about recusing Catholics recusing potato potato. And I was just like, so he had to pretend to believe something that he that he believed in order to stay on the good side of Elizabeth. And I am a teenager that nobody understands. And I have to pretend it was like this whole existential thing that I had when I was like 16. And that got me started on it. So it was really an existential crisis.

Jonathan Thomas (04:29)
Well, I mean, I could argue that my own love of England and Shasbury England started as an existential crisis as teenagers. apparently these these roots run deep for us. So after university, you actually packed up and moved to England to immerse yourself in history. That's a bold move. What was that like and how did it shape everything they came after?

Heather Teysko (04:39)
We have that in common. There you go.

⁓ well, yes. So I just went on a trip as you have and lots of people have. And while I was there and on the train back, I thought I need to live here. And I was 24 and single and I didn't have ties. And I thought, how, how is that possible? And, you know, I started, these were the early days of the internet and I started Googling. Googling was brand new back then. ⁓ I think I might've asked Jeeves at one point too. ⁓ and right. yeah, yeah, yeah. It feels like it.

Jonathan Thomas (05:17)
This is just last week, right?

Heather Teysko (05:20)
Um, and anyway, there was a type of visa called a BUNAC visa for people that had been in grad school. I don't, or in any kind of university, I don't know if it still exists or not, but I'd been in grad school and so it was, you could go for six months and get a visa. And the idea was just to have like cultural exchange, have people go work in pubs, that kind of thing. But I was also very lucky because I was working as a researcher at a headhunting firm and they had just been bought by a British or a multinational that had an English office and.

I wrote to them and said, hey, can I come work in your office if I sort out my visa? And they said, sure, why not? And so I got a BUNAC visa, and that was good for six months. And after that, I was able to renew some stuff. And I went to school officially registered for school in England. So I was able to stay on a student visa, which gives you a little bit of working time as well. And so yeah, that was what I did. And it was scary because I didn't know anybody. ⁓ I just kind of packed up and moved. And I didn't know anything about

how to find an apartment or there was Loot magazine, I don't know if that still exists, it was like the free paper and I found a place to stay in Barnet at the end of the Northern line where there was a very famous war during the Wars of the Roses battle during the Wars of the Roses, the Battle of Barnet. ⁓ And yeah, I lived there and then I kind of moved around. I was there for about two years ⁓ at that point. So yeah, it was.

I don't know, it was exciting. It was an adventure. I also had a young person's rail card. So every weekend I would show up at, I would pick a random train station and I would just kind of look at where the trains were headed and pick a place that sounded interesting and wound up in all kinds of interesting places randomly from that as well. So ⁓ I went to, I wound up in a, sitting in the Durham Cathedral for the miners parade without knowing what a miners parade was because that just happened to be where a train was going when I was at King's Cross.

Jonathan Thomas (07:10)
I feel like we could have a whole podcast about all those experiences. Shoot, we're going to have to write that down for later.

Heather Teysko (07:14)
you

Heather's random train train trips.

Jonathan Thomas (07:18)
Yeah,

Jonathan Thomas (07:19)
so those adventures sound like they were amazing. So from then, uh, fast forward to 2009, you started the Renaissance English history podcast over Labor Day weekend on a whim. What were you actually trying to do? And did you have any idea at the time what it will become?

Heather Teysko (07:31)
It was.

⁓

No, and so one of the things about me is I'm very into history, but I'm also very into technology. So back in 1998, I actually built my first website, which was on a GeoCities thing, which was this like build your own website, website. ⁓ And I built a website.

I just said website a lot. built a site on colonial American history, colonialamerica.org. And for a while it was number one on Yahoo back in 1999. I'm very proud of that. ⁓ And so I've always been into new technology and also how I can merge history with new technology. so podcasting was a thing. ⁓ I was listening to the history of Rome and a couple of the other big ones that are still kind of grand daddies of them all. And I thought like,

Jonathan Thomas (07:57)
Ha

Heather Teysko (08:25)
I want to learn how to do this. This seems like a really cool new technology that's coming around, and I'd like to try that. And so I just on a whim bought a mic, and I was like, what should I podcast on? And it was 2009, which there were a lot of Tudor things that happened in 2009. Other websites and blogs and things started. Mine was the only podcast, but there are other blogs and websites that started because it was the 500th anniversary of Henry VIII's reign starting 1509.

And the Tudors was on TV. There was kind of like all the Philip and Gregory stuff was just taking off. So was kind of like Tudor mania and was very much in my psyche, I guess. And I thought, a podcast on Tudor England. There wasn't any other Tudor history podcast out there. And I thought, ⁓ that'd be fun. so I, yeah, just bought a cheap mic at Best Buy and I had to figure out how to do it all. You know, it was like kind of going through, how do you record and how do you, I didn't know how to edit at the time. So I had to do everything in one take. So my early episodes,

are all really short because I recorded everything. I didn't know how to like stop and start and didn't do any kind of post-production or anything like that. people who, people message me sometimes and they say, I just started listening to your show and I'm back on episode 10. And I'm like, I'm sorry, it gets better.

Jonathan Thomas (09:38)
That's how I feel. People look at the early iteration, early articles in Anglotopia is like I was still figured it out back in 2008. Please bear with us. Yeah, those those those archives are buried in the ether for a reason. You know, yeah, yeah, that's that's very similar to how Anglotopia started. I mean, I started it. I built it with I web on my Mac and put it on the web and hoped if somebody would read it until and until I built it with WordPress so.

Heather Teysko (09:45)
Right? Yeah, be patient.

Yeah.

Nice.

Jonathan Thomas (10:07)
So 2009

is ancient history in podcast terms and website terms. What was the podcasting landscape like back then? And how did the show evolve as you figured out how this new medium was working?

Heather Teysko (10:11)
and website terms.

Yeah, well, I mean, that's I think my experience was how a lot of podcasters were back then. It wasn't something that was like a business then. It's gotten so kind of serious now and people get into it as a business sort of idea. And it definitely wasn't. It was just a fun thing that I enjoyed doing. And I didn't know if anybody would listen to it. I just wanted to understand how the technology worked. I have some it was a hobby. And it's actually funny because

At one point around 2013, I ⁓ hadn't podcasted in a while because I'd had a baby. And I thought I was like looking at expenses and could I cut down on expenses? And was looking at my podcast hosting and I was like, yeah, I haven't done a podcast episode in like, I don't know, a year. Do I still need to be paying for this hosting? And I was actually going to just stop altogether and just say, you know, I'm going to just kind of not even have that hanging out anymore. I'm just going to give up on that and take care of my baby and my work and not think about.

It was like the mental load kind of thing. And then I logged in and I looked at my statistics. And this thing was getting like 40,000 downloads a month. And I was like, what the heck? Right? I was like, well, I guess I'll keep this live and see. And at the time, I also thought, maybe I could kind of use this as partially like an application for grad school. Because I'd done some graduate work and I thought I should finish it up.

Jonathan Thomas (11:30)
my God. Not canceling that RSS feed.

Heather Teysko (11:51)
should get back to that. And so I thought I can use my podcast, show people how serious I am by my podcast. So that was my initial thought of how I would use it was to help get me a scholarship to grad school. And then I realized that I didn't want to be in academia because I like being an entrepreneur. And I wanted to find other ways to spread history rather than teaching or being in an academic setting. ⁓ And so I just kind of evolved after that. I realized that people were listening to it. And then I thought, huh, like, surely there's a way to like

do something with that? I was just kind of like, how do people, I had to kind of Google, how do people make money if they have an audience? And I just kind of had to figure out how offers worked and what my audience was interested in and if there was a way that I could do something to make it kind of like a job. so through a lot of different things at the wall, I actually, we moved to Spain. ⁓

in 2015, trying to avoid a midlife crisis, my husband and I, it was, we'd had, it was a long saga. We'd had a lot of trouble getting our daughter. Then I had like postpartum depression. We needed a break and we thought, let's go move to Spain for a year and take a break. So we moved to Spain and I thought, this is great. We had some savings. I thought I'm going to like learn how to podcast and really learn how to turn this into a business. And so I just focused on that 2015 and we were.

wound up able to renew our visa and we stayed in Spain for seven years, which was amazing as well. And during that time, I tried all kinds of stuff. threw a, but I even, had a Tudor radio network for like a minute. That was a big failure. I thought that would be fun, having an online radio station that was all Tudor all the time. I think me and three other people agreed that that was a good idea. And so nothing really happened with that. But one of the things TudorCon came about because,

I actually was doing those kind of, you you see those online summits where people like have the weekend with all kinds of different experts. And I thought I should do one of those in Tudor history. And I'd been interviewing a lot of people, so I had contacts and I thought, let's do something. It'll be fun and get everybody, know, kind of promote everybody. And so I put together this online summit and I realized while that was going on that the thing that was most interesting to people wasn't necessarily the talks. Cause you can go on and listen to podcasts and

go onto YouTube and watch videos and all that. But the thing that was really interesting to people or really special was the community side of it. Because I had like a private Facebook group for it and people were just in there spending the weekend just talking about, was Anne of Cleves really the ugly one? did Tom Seymour really kill Edward the sixth dog? And like getting into these debates. And I realized that was like the magic sauce was having these people all together.

and spending this time with each other, because Tudor nerds tend to be islands of nerdiness surrounded by people who roll their eyes when we want to talk about transubstantiation, for example. so just having a place, having a space for all these people to be together in real time was really awesome. And I thought, I need to get these people together in person. And so then two years later, we did TudorCon. And that's been going since 2019.

Jonathan Thomas (15:02)
So when did it go from virtual to in-person?

Heather Teysko (15:05)
Well, 2019 was the first real life one that we did. And then 2020 was just online because it was 2020. And then we were back in person in 2021. And we've been in Richmond at Agecroft since 2024. Yeah, this will be our third year in Richmond. And we're actually expand. This year is going to be bigger because we're also being sponsored by Randolph-Macon College in Ashland. The history department there is giving us space. And we're going to have

multitracks. So at Agecroft, they just have one meeting room. So we can only have one talk at a time going on this year. We're to have five classrooms and a reception room with tables like yours and other people. And so it's actually going to feel like an actual conference. I'm a little bit massive, not a little bit. I'm really scared, but it's going to be awesome. So yeah.

Jonathan Thomas (15:52)
I'm really excited about being a sponsor because when you sent me the proposal I was like this is a no-brainer I mean I just I want to hang out with history nerds for a weekend and I get to see age craft Hall so let's let's talk about age craft Hall I know it's that's somewhere in the questions but let's talk about it ⁓ for those who don't know what is age craft Hall and why is it so special

Heather Teysko (15:57)
Yeah.

Yeah.

H. Croft Hall is an actual 15th century. So just slightly before Tudor, medieval ⁓ English home that was in Lancashire. And in the 19-teens, the city of Richmond was growing thanks to tobacco farming and lots of different things. And there was a guy who wanted to build up Richmond to be like a little England. So he was planning this neighborhood. And where H. Croft is,

It's like this whole neighborhood that tries to be very British. There's actually like a tea shop and they have names like Oxford Way and Eaton Road and stuff. ⁓ so he brought over, he wanted to live in an actual Tudor manor home. And so he sent his architect to England and also the neighbor. So right next door to Agecroft is Virginia House. Yeah, I think it's called Virginia House. ⁓ And that's also, that's Elizabethan.

And so this one architect was hired by both families to go over to England and scout out potential homes. And this is also during the time in England when a lot of these manor homes and places that are now stately homes, they were kind of falling apart and they were having to be go private and turn into museums. And so he was able to get these homes for a good deal and brought them over piece by piece. So H-Craft has like, it's...

all pretty much the whole thing is original and they even brought the glass they had to like send the glass separately because it had to be packed so carefully they couldn't put it on the railroad to bring it up because it could have cracked and so it's all like this old glass they have a priest hide which goes into my nerding out on the Reformation they've got you know all of the stuff the furniture that came with it they've got some deeds of pardons and land leases and things that were in the archives at the

that the family had there that they've just got hanging up portraits like they just basically bought the whole thing lock, stock and barrel and brought it over and it's pretty, pretty amazing.

Jonathan Thomas (18:16)
Well I'm thrilled to finally have an excuse to visit so I can't wait to see it and see it in person. I'm gonna have to come early so I can tour around it.

Heather Teysko (18:21)
Yeah, yeah, that's very

Yeah, you should tell me because I can, we'll talk about that because I can get Katie the education person there who I'm dealing with to give you a special tour. can make some YouTube videos and stuff.

Jonathan Thomas (18:37)
Perfect.

So tell us about the speaker lineup for this year. Who's coming and what are some of the sessions that you're most excited about?

Heather Teysko (18:46)
Well, I'm very excited because also as a sign that TudorCon is growing up, we're bringing a keynote over from the UK, Nathan Amin, who is, ⁓ he's fabulous. He's early Tudor. ⁓ He looks at, he's Welsh. So he looks at the very early Henry Tudor, the first one, Henry the seventh and the rise of the Tudors. And he does a lot on like the princes in the tower and just early, early Tudor period.

And he actually was one of the people who spoke at that very first online Tudor summit. And then we had TudorCon. And in 2019, I was like, I got to get Nathan over to this. He and I have had ideas for a while. I've always wanted to do more stuff with him because he's just a fabulous person. And so in 2019, I said, would you like to come to TudorCon next year? And he was like, I would love to. But then 2020 happened and it all just fell apart. So we're very excited that now finally, six years later, can bring Nathan back.

And then the rest of the speakers we have, we do a speaker, an open call for papers and ⁓ people who are kind of everyday people put in paper ideas. You don't have to be an academic though we do have some academics obviously who are doing talks, but we've got, we really like to dig into not just the wives and not just Henry and the divorce, although there's drama there and that tends to get people in a lot of times, but ⁓ everyday life we've got people ⁓

One of our presenters, Tiffany, is talking about John Dee, who was Elizabeth I's astrologer. He actually planned Elizabeth's coronation day using the stars. And he had England's largest library, actually Europe's largest private library at the time. And he was also very busy searching for the philosopher's stone, which I really love this period because you don't separate. After the Enlightenment, we got all separating out.

like science from spirituality. And in this period, you don't have that yet. And so you can be someone who is both very, very learned and have the largest private library in Europe while also searching for the philosopher's stone and trying to turn metal into gold and things like that. And I think that's pretty cool. So she's going to do one of his experiments. ⁓ And that's going to be fun. And so, yeah, we have about 15 speakers on everything from jewelry to clothing to

actual events to local history because of course there actually is a local connection with Virginia to the late Tudor, early Stuart period. So you know that's interesting the idea and that there's that local connection to English history. So yeah we've got a really fun speaker lineup.

Jonathan Thomas (21:21)
Sounds fun. So what's the thing about TudorCon that surprises people most when they actually attend for the first time?

Heather Teysko (21:22)
Yeah.

I think it's the idea that, well, to start with, it's the friendliest place in the world. It's just, people always are nervous about coming if they don't know anybody or they're, you know, they're just like, I don't know if I could come by myself. Absolutely, you can come by yourself because it's just the nicest group of people around. ⁓ So I am biased, but I do think that. But I think it's also the idea that for a lot of these people, it's people who are passionate, a lot of the speakers, it's people who are passionate, like I am, who maybe don't have

an advanced degree in Tudor history and they thought, you know, I can't, I wanted to build something that was a mix of an academic conference with the fun of a Renaissance fair. Like that's really what I wanted to do was build something where you could wear costumes, but you probably weren't going to come goth like you do at the Renaissance fair. And, you know, but it's like for people who love going to Renaissance fairs because they love the history. then if you're like me, you kind of are a little bit judgy, like, well, that's not historically accurate. And I try to

tamp that down because it's no fun. But I wanted to create something that had the fun of a Renaissance fair with learning and actually being focused on the history. And I think it's pretty cool to see people who might not have thought that they could speak at a conference like this because they're not an academic and they don't have a PhD or whatever, but they're actually really passionate about one particular part of Tudor history and they know it like the back of their hand and they can share their knowledge and we can all learn from them.

And I think that's really cool too. Yeah, I just think it's a ⁓ beautiful community. It's also just really great to be around your people, you know, like, yeah. Yeah.

Jonathan Thomas (23:05)
get that. And so

for for those who can't come to Virginia, you have an offering for them. What's how can people stay connected to the convention if they can't come to Virginia?

Heather Teysko (23:12)
Hello.

well, thanks for bringing that up. ⁓ have TudorCon from home, which is a stream. And it's not just like a Zoom stream. We actually have a host who happens to be my husband, who's hilarious because he has gotten Tudor history through me, but he's not an expert in a lot of it. He's not an expert really in any of it, but he loves learning about it. And so he hosts the stream and he walks around and interviews people like at the party on Friday night, he'll be walking around.

looking at all the people who are dressed in their gowns and interviewing them all and asking them how they made their gowns. And he'll just get the conversation going with the people who are watching from home. And it's funny because I love, again, we're really all about this community, like having this really special community of people who all share the same passion. And we take a group photo at TudorCon in person on the Sunday afternoon after ⁓ we finish up, we go out into the courtyard and we take a photo.

And what I love is this past year, the people who were on the stream actually took a bunch of screenshots of the Zoom as their group photo and sent it and asked if it could be included in the group photo of TudorCon. And I thought that was really cool because they had had so much fun with each other all through the weekend. And we have special talks just for this online people and special events and things just for them too. they're not, it's not just like you're just watching other people have fun, you're having fun too.

Jonathan Thomas (24:43)
sounds nice. So the information for all of that will be in the show notes. And if you want to attend, follow the dates again.

Heather Teysko (24:43)
Yeah.

No.

October 23rd to 25th. And actually I should probably have a a special for Anglotopia listeners. I should do it give a coupon code or something.

Jonathan Thomas (24:54)
So, and.

you there will be a coupon code in the show notes. ⁓ So you have plenty of time. This won't come out for a few weeks. So and Anglotopia will be there and I'm hoping to be there in person. I hoping to be. That's what that's my plan. October is very busy. It's October is a it's a there's a confluence of a lot of things. ⁓ know, the whole thing reminds me of the Churchill Conference, which is

Heather Teysko (25:09)
But yeah. Yeah.

Jonathan Thomas (25:30)
A very similar experience. It's all these people from all different kinds of backgrounds who come together to celebrate Winston Churchill. And most of them aren't academics. Many are just enthusiasts and nobody dresses up. uh, but except for the formal dinners where you dress up in a tuxedo and all that, but it was a lot of fun. I went a few years ago when it was in London and actually this year it's the weekend before your conference in Philadelphia. Um, yeah.

Heather Teysko (25:44)
Yeah.

No way! I gotta go!

Jonathan Thomas (26:00)
Yeah, it's, it's, it's, ⁓ they're, they're celebrating America 250 and the special relationship. So it'll be in Philadelphia. So you should go.

Heather Teysko (26:05)
Yeah.

I I should, because that's really close to me. You know, my husband is a Mason and he goes to the lodge in Philadelphia, which is the oldest lodge in the country. guess between them and Boston, they argue because one shut down during the revolution and the other kept going. So there's an argument in terms of who's the oldest. Anyway, we're going to a dinner over the summer for America 250 in the Constitution Hall or whatever. like very excited about that. So that's good. Yeah. So Philly America 250, Churchill Conference, like.

Jonathan Thomas (26:11)
Yeah.

Nice.

Heather Teysko (26:36)
Sign me up. going to go. I wrote it down. I'm going to their website after this. Check it out.

Jonathan Thomas (26:41)
So let's shift gears a little bit to building a community around history. ⁓ You've built something genuinely unusual. It's a multi-platform community of people who are deeply and joyfully obsessed with a specific period of history. What have you learned about what makes communities like that work? And I'm now grilling you for advice because we both do something very similar.

Heather Teysko (27:03)
Ha

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, I'd love to hear your thoughts too. We could, we could riff on that. I think it has to be, it has going to sound trite, but it has to be something that's genuine for you. You know, like there've been times where I have tried things because it looks like the shiny new thing that all of the online marketing people are saying you should do. And, so I've tried, tried it and it has landed flat or hasn't landed at all. And

Jonathan Thomas (27:12)
Okay.

Heather Teysko (27:35)
I think it's because it wasn't genuine to me. I think, and I said, I do, I still do podcast trainings. I teach people how to make podcasts. And one thing I talk about all the time is like, you should talk about the stuff that interests you because I don't know about you, but I could listen to somebody talk about, I could listen to somebody read train schedules if they were enthusiastic about it and loved it. And that genuine passion for something, it's not something that you see every day. So when you see people,

who really have it and who are living it and who are encouraging other people to live it. I think it's infectious. It makes you want to be around them. ⁓ Like, I don't know. There's just the idea that there's communities for everything. I think I found once like a community dedicated to roundabouts in Wales. know, like it's like there's 8 billion people in the world. And like, surely there's going to be a couple thousand of them that share what you're passionate about and just

how do you, now with the internet, there's the tools to facilitate bringing them together. And once you have them together and they're all meeting each other and they're all sharing with each other, maybe places that their own family doesn't understand why they're so obsessed with whatever this thing is, it's really magical if you share in that and you can kind of help facilitate that. think also, people need a place to feel like they can

I don't want to say like escape, but the world is a lot sometimes. And sometimes it seems like it's really nice to have a place where the one thing I love about TudorCon is we are all types of people and we are, it's not a monolith. It's not like, I guess the point is we don't talk about politics. We don't talk about anything modern. We just talk about how much we love the tutors. And I know there's people, there's such a range of people that come to TudorCon. And if you just were hanging out with them,

you probably, if you just saw them at Starbucks, you probably wouldn't know that they were your new best friends from TudorCon, but you meet in that place sharing that magic with each other. it, I don't know, it makes bonds happen that I think we need more ways to make bonds happen in the world and make communication happen and get deeper with each other. So now I'm rambling.

Jonathan Thomas (29:51)
Well, I, and I, I agree. I very similar arc. I've always chased shiny marketing objects over the years. and you know, at one point I thought we should use the Inglotopia model for, know, we should do Franco topia and Europe topia and honestly topia and New Zealand topia. And, but I quickly realized that you cannot replicate a thing based on a singular passion. Like it just, it just doesn't work because for one, your attention will always go back to the main thing. And.

the offshoots will just wither. And so it's all about strengthening that one thing and being really good at the one thing because that's what people come for. ⁓

Heather Teysko (30:31)
Yeah. And the thing is,

like, if you do New Zealandopia, I'm sure there's other people who are more passionate about New Zealand than you are. So like, it's not going to, I don't know how passionate you are about New Zealand, but I'm just assuming. Okay. I went there once in part of, so I took my daughter. I was, I had a bout of postpartum depression. And in dealing with that, one of the things I thought that would be fun was for my daughter and I to go on a girls trip to New Zealand when by ourselves, when she was nine months old.

Jonathan Thomas (30:38)
Yeah.

Never been there.

Heather Teysko (31:00)
It was not a wise decision. It was actually one of the worst decisions of my life. My husband was like, are you sure you want to do this? I was like, yeah, we need a girls trip. We need to relax on a girls trip to New Zealand. ⁓ Wasn't.

Jonathan Thomas (31:00)
Wow.

on an 18 hour flight to New Zealand. Did you at least go to Hobbiton? my god.

Heather Teysko (31:15)
Yeah, yeah, I don't know what I was thinking. Anyway, that's a different story.

No, we didn't.

And I never really saw New Zealand in the evening because my daughter's sleep, she was nine months old, her sleep never adjusted. So we were going to bed at three in the afternoon and waking up at like three in the morning. And so I spent a lot of early mornings wandering around the state in this place, in this Airbnb in a place called Devonport outside of Auckland. And I would be wandering around with her in the carriage, like, you know, as the sun was coming up, trying to find a coffee shop. And ⁓ yeah, that was my New Zealand time. I need to go back on a proper girls trip.

Jonathan Thomas (31:52)
That sounds terrible. It reminds me of when we went to Britain for the Diamond Jubilee and we had a six month old and I was like, we're not gonna let this six month old hold us back. We're gonna go on this adventure and do it anyway.

Heather Teysko (31:53)
It was awful.

Jonathan Thomas (32:08)
By the time he had just, yeah, I mean, by the time he adjusted to the jet lag, I think it was time to leave and come home. And we were there for three weeks. you know, we, the first few days were just a blur. Like we spent the evenings driving the Oxford ring road because our son had a horrible colic and just would not sleep. And he just refused to sleep.

Heather Teysko (32:08)
There's a reason why people don't travel with infants.

Was that?

Jonathan Thomas (32:31)
And yeah, it was, we made the best of it, but ⁓ there's a reason why we didn't travel internationally with our kids until this past year, because we just wanted to wait until they were old enough to appreciate it, because otherwise they're just taking up space and causing you misery.

Heather Teysko (32:35)
sounds terrible.

Yeah. Well, we wanted to keep traveling. So we just decided to just move then to Spain because we're like, let's just go be based there and travel there. And then that was, it's hard getting there, but we made it work. ⁓ so yeah, I think just back to your thing about chasing the shiny marketing objects. Yeah. If, if you tried to do New Zealand,opia, it wouldn't be authentic to you and somebody else who is way more passionate about New Zealand, like they should do New Zealand,opia and maybe you guys partner or something, but it's not.

Jonathan Thomas (32:50)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Heather Teysko (33:16)
like for you to do.

Jonathan Thomas (33:18)
Well,

and the landscape of the internet has changed so much. ⁓ The value, and as I'm sure you know, this isn't in building a content website that for website traffic, the value is in building the audience on multiple platforms. that, you know, yeah, there's, it takes so much work to do that. You can only really focus on one thing because you know, it's otherwise you're just, you're just.

You're just spreading yourself too thin or too little marmite on the toast as they say.

Heather Teysko (33:50)
Yeah. Right.

And also just in the, this age, I think a lot about this because like you, have a, yeah, I have a kiddo and I think about their future and with AI and like just if knowledge becomes so easy to get to, where is the value that I'm providing? If anybody can just go on to clod or whatever and look up Tudor stuff, what am I giving them? And so I think a lot about that too. And I think like the community side and people want to be with other people, you we're social.

And I think we really saw that after the pandemic and stuff that people want to have this time with others.

Jonathan Thomas (34:25)
Yeah, they want experiences and they want authenticity and you're not going to get that from Claude. I mean, it's it's a useful tool, but AI isn't going to be your friend yet. So anyway, ⁓ we're probably we're probably getting into into into the weeds for our lovely listeners. So ⁓ back to the podcast. What's coming up on the Renaissance English history podcast that our listeners should look out for if they start following you?

Heather Teysko (34:36)
Right. Yeah.

Right. Yeah.

⁓ what's got, you know, I tend to make things. So ⁓ what's coming up is whatever book I'm reading at the time, and I'm really into that, and I go down a rabbit hole. So I've been reading about female mystics and people like Julian of Norwich and Marjorie Kemp and these medieval women who had visions. And even in the Tudor period, there was the maid of Kent, who was a nun, Elizabeth Barton, who had visions that if Henry married Anne Boleyn, he would die a horrible death and, you know, actually said that to Henry, which I think takes some guts.

and she was killed and actually the only female in recorded history to ever have her head put on London Bridge because what she said was treason as opposed to heresy and other things that women were executed for. Anyway, that's getting sidetracked. So I'm doing a lot on obscure women mystics at the moment, which is a weird caveat, rabbit hole to go down, but I'm enjoying it. And I think one of the things, again, that goes back to the authenticity. I used to also on my YouTube channel, especially,

I used to chase what I thought would be popular. So I'd have the top five villains of Tudor history or the top 10, like all these things that were like you thought would work according to the algorithm. And they got some views, but it was never stuff that I was particularly passionate about or that I cared about. And so it landed in not a great way, I'm thinking. And then when I started actually just following what I was into, and again,

It's the idea of somebody sharing something that they're actually really genuinely interested in and having that enthusiasm and other people come along for the enthusiasm. And I've had comments like that from people before where they're like, I didn't even know I was into this stuff, but you're just so into it and it makes me want to be into it. so, you know, I guess I never, so the whole, the short answer that that was a really long answer to a short question, the short answer is I don't know. And it depends what books I'm going to be reading.

Jonathan Thomas (36:50)
Well, and I totally understand that that perspective too, because like back in 2018, 2019, when the when Meta decided to cut off all of our reach on social media and our audience collapse and the business almost collapsed because of it, I was like, you know what? I'm not I'm not chasing the algorithm anymore. I'm like, I don't work for Meta. I don't work for Google.

I'm gonna put out the stuff I wanna put out and I know that the audience is out there and they'll find me eventually. And even though I can't reach the ones who have found us anymore, I'll just do my best and put the stuff out in as long as you make good stuff and you're memorable, people are gonna find you and you'll build the audience on your own without having to rely on big tech to send you free traffic. So.

Heather Teysko (37:39)
Yep.

Again, there's 8 billion people in the world, right? You only need a couple thousand of them and you've got a business out of that.

Jonathan Thomas (37:41)
Yeah.

Yeah,

that's it. You only need a few thousand passionate fans to really ⁓ make a successful business. Because if people are passionate about something and they like what you're doing, they're going to pay for it.

Heather Teysko (37:59)
Yeah. And that's why I don't worry so

much about competition and stuff too. And like, there's a lot of Tudor podcasters and I'm all for supporting everybody who's doing this because the rising tide lifts all boats and nobody's going to do it the way I do it. And so that's cool. Like you do your, and people are, some people are going to resonate more with me. Some people are going to resonate more with other people. And I think it's really great to have a choice, to have a choice of who, and again, there's 8 billion people. So.

Jonathan Thomas (38:24)
Well, and it also helps you focus because I know now who I'm, for lack of a better phrase, working for. I'm working for my dedicated fans who want to keep reading what I do and everyone listening to us or watching us on YouTube. I'm working for them, whether they pay us money or not. I know that they're there watching. So this is for everybody.

Heather Teysko (38:47)
Right, exactly. That's what I think too.

Like you say, I've stopped trying to chase that algorithm stuff. It doesn't work.

Jonathan Thomas (38:54)
So

what's next? You were telling me about an app that you are wrapping up, so please tell us about your app.

Heather Teysko (39:01)
Yeah.

well, yeah, I'm building a Tudor history app that's more just like feeds of all the different Tudor pod. It's basically just going to be a Tudor where to go to get all the feeds of all of the different people who are doing Tudor stuff and mine, of course. And TudorCon will be on there. And there's a discussion area and just a whole app, which it's not live in app stores yet, but it might be by the time this goes out. So I'll have to tell you. I'll reconnect with you on that. ⁓ And so that's fun. I guess just like taking so

I have, it's only been about 18 months that I've really started seeing what I do as an actual business. Because before then I would refer to it as my Tudor stuff. And I literally called it, oh, that's my Tudor stuff. And then I had this funny experience because I've been in libraries, I think I was saying to you earlier, I was in the library world for 25 years, almost 25 years. And I have worked with libraries and done marketing with libraries and library vendors and organizations. And I was working with this woman.

about 18 months ago who was building an app and it was a library related app and she wanted to send it, ship it to consumers as well. And she had no experience with the consumer market and she thought that I could help her with that. And I realized that I had way more of a reach and way more of an audience than she did. And I wasn't treating my Tudor stuff like an actual business. I was treating it like a hobby. And she...

She was starting from nothing. She had nothing. And she was paying me and paying other consultants and paying all these people and treating it like a business. And I had this realization, I thought, holy cow, she's actually going to make this a business. And this is actually going to be successful because she treats it like a business. I keep treating my stuff as a hobby. And so it's going to always stay that way. So I had to have this like mental shift to treating it like a business. And so since I made that shift, ⁓ I have

I signed a book deal with Countryman Press, which is an imprint of WW Norton. And it's the Tudor Fan Guide, which is coming out next summer. Basically a book on Tudor fandom, which is going to be fun. So I'm working on that now. And I've started reaching out to sponsors like yourself for TudorCon, because I realized it was never something I really thought about that much. It was just like, yeah, someday I should get sponsors. And so I've been really, I guess the whole point you said, what's next? I'm still trying. My business is growing up.

This is the couple of years that my business is like growing up and doing its thing.

Jonathan Thomas (41:21)
Well,

and I'm glad we finally connected because I think your outreach to me was probably part of a strategy to for your business strategy. And so, you know, I applaud your efforts because as a fellow business owner who turned a hobby into a business, this is a very exciting time for you to be to be doing all this because it's nice to see all the hard work start to pay off and to professionalize a platform that

Heather Teysko (41:29)
It was!

Yeah.

Jonathan Thomas (41:51)
is that you have so much passion in because it makes all the work all the more fulfilling that you know that you have a fulfilling role and people are into it and it's a thriving thing. So good luck.

Heather Teysko (42:05)
Yeah,

yeah, no, it's exciting. And like I said, it was funny because I was working for this woman and I realized like, if I'm going to be working for a hobby business, I already have a hobby business that's way bigger than this is, I should just treat myself like a consultant, like she's treating me and actually do that. And so yeah, it's been it's been really interesting to see what's happened just since that vibe, vibe shift, I suppose that I had ⁓ it. Yeah, it's really cool to actually

I used to feel guilty. So here's, I used to feel guilty working on my podcast cause I was like, I'm just going to do my Tudor stuff. But now I'm like, actually, you know what? This is a business. I'm mom's going to work now. Like mom needs to be not disturbed cause mom's working. This is work. And it's just, it's interesting. So.

Jonathan Thomas (42:51)
is. I'm sure we could talk for a whole other hour all about it. so, but yeah. So what a brilliant conversation this has been. Thank you so much for joining us on the Anglotopia podcast, Heather. You can find the Renaissance English History podcast at englandcast.com or on all of the podcast networks because it's everywhere because it's one of the oldest podcasts. So it's out there. Yeah. And on YouTube.

Heather Teysko (42:53)
Yes, we could. That'll be a different conversation.

Yeah.

and YouTube.

Jonathan Thomas (43:18)
where you can watch the video versions and you can find Anglotopia on that on there as well. So if you want to experience TudorCon for yourself in person or from home, head to tudorcon.englandcast.com. Link is in the show notes. TudorCon 2026 is October 23rd to the 25th in Richmond, Virginia, and Anglotopia is thrilled to be a sponsor. And we'll link to everything in the show notes. And if you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, like or comment. And if you like the Anglotopia podcast, which is a baby podcast compared to

to Heather's. Please consider joining the Friends of Anglotopia Club, where you can get early access to new episodes and connect with other Britain enthusiasts. Join us next time as we continue exploring the people, places, and stories that make Britain's cultural heritage so endlessly fascinating to discover. Thank you, Heather.

Heather Teysko (44:06)
Thank you, Jonathan, for having me. This was a delight. ⁓

Jonathan Thomas (44:09)
Yes, it was. All right.