about the project:

This is a love letter to individuals’ stories, to context, to curiosity, and to oft-passed-over details. The goal is to clear the smoke around Blackbeard and his crew, to strip away the eye patches and peg legs, and get to the human truth of the matter.

Together we will follow the paper trail as far as it will go in search of Blackbeard/Edward Teach/Edward Thatch and his origins, which are questionable. We will search for his connections with North Carolina’s government. We will examine some of the headstones in the watery Graveyard of the Atlantic, explore the pirate’s old haunts, and try to find out what happened to his crew (some of whom were local boys from Bath, North Carolina).

As a journalist, I’ve often found the telling facts are often hiding out in the parentheses. In the details there is texture and truth — in the scars on a grandfather’s hand from decades of shucking oysters, in the reason a fisherman is wary of water, in a middle name passed to oldest daughters for four generations.

My job is to draw Blackbeard’s world for you in full color and sketch it in detail, and to draw you in with stories and snippets of people being people — in all of their sly, hilarious, awful, committed, golden, conflicted, inspired glory. Starting in August of 2020 and going through April 2021, an installment of the Blackbeard story will land in readers’ inboxes on the last Friday of each month. If that sounds like your deal, I’d love to have you along.

About the author…

…who is also the researcher, photographer, webmaster, playlist-maker, and editor-in-chief. My name is Megan Dohm. I have been a freelance journalist for three years, a professional photographer for four. I’m a fan of Oxford commas, Cheerwine, one-on-one conversations that go deep quickly, blue china, and Shakespeare done well. To give you an idea of the geekery going on around here, I got genuinely excited at the prospect of chasing down 18th-century court documents for this project (arguably an occupational hazard for a history-major-turned-writer). Despite having a full queue, I’m always on the lookout for podcast recommendations. And I’m glad you’re here — come on in and stay a while.

ABOUT THE TEAM

Sharon Burroughs - Copy Editor and Chief Literary Advisor

Sharon Burroughs appreciates used books, chocolate, and hiking. When she isn’t practicing botanical homicide, she can typically be found with a book in hand. Sharon is a life-long NC native and happily resides in the middle of nowhere with her husband and ten children. A firm believer in life-long learning, she is currently studying European geography and the Russian revolution. 

Kelsey Martin - Illustrator

Kelsey is primarily a watercolorist and calligrapher based in Raleigh, NC. Known to friends as Kettle, she also dabbles in bookbinding, upholstery, linocut printing, graphic design, and much more. She hopes that new artforms stop striking her fancy long enough to master one of the skills she’s already pursuing.