Spooky Rivers, with Geo Rutherford

Robert Lamb (0:02)

Welcome to Stuff To Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Hey, welcome to Stuff To Blow Your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb, and today I have a special interview for you. I got to chat with Geo Rutherford, known for Spooky Lake Month and her haunted hydrology book series, which includes the latest installment, Spooky Rivers, 25 Strange and Mysterious Rivers, Snake Across Our Planet, which she wrote and illustrated. This is just a really super fun book, full of science, full of history and culture, and amusing and amazing illustrations. We are big fans in my household, so I was delighted to get a chance to chat with her. Now, Geo is in the middle of some book promotion travel. If you're watching the video version of this episode on Netflix, you're going to notice that she is recording from a stationary car, so we felt this was better than having her record on the move or on a ferry, though I suppose that would have been apt for the subject matter, right? Anyway, without further ado, let's jump right in to the interview.

Hi, Geo. Welcome to the show.

Geo Rutherford (1:17)

Thank you for having me.

Robert Lamb (1:19)

Yeah, I'm excited to chat with you here on Stuff To Blow Your Mind during the month of October, that's when the interview is publishing. And this is a big month for you, right?

Geo Rutherford (1:28)

Yeah, I actually feel like I should have started with yes, hello, because that's how I usually start my videos in October. It is Spooky Lake Month. We are in the midst of it.

Robert Lamb (1:38)

And are there any teasers you want to throw out about the sort of content that the listeners and viewers can expect?

Geo Rutherford (1:45)

Well, Spooky Lake Month is a little bit of a misnomer because it's always been about anything wet and weird. So any type of, we say it's 31 days of haunted hydrology. And I've been saving up a few rivers for this year. So I'm looking forward to talking about the Congo River and the Ganges River and some rivers that are extremely spooky.

Robert Lamb (2:05)

Now, when you say haunted hydrology, can you, for anyone out there, I think most of our listeners are going to be familiar with what you're all about. But can you explain what this means to you? Like what it is and also what it isn't?

Geo Rutherford (2:18)

Yeah, that's a very important thing because I do think it's a little, it can be a little bit on the outside, a little confusing. But Spooky Lake Month is an all nonfiction. It's about the world being spooky by herself. It's about environmental disasters. It's about history.

It's about natural phenomena and science. And it's not about true crime or ghosts and ghouls or conspiracy theories. It's more trying to focus on the historical events and the natural world.

Robert Lamb (2:47)

Awesome. Yeah.

My kiddo is the one who introduced me to you and your work. And that's one of the things they stressed at the top. They're like, no, no, no, dad, it's not ghosts. It's this is science. This is geology. This is great content. And indeed it is.

Geo Rutherford (3:02)

Yeah.

Robert Lamb (3:03)

So we're here mostly to talk about the book. I have it right here. I'm going to hold it up for folks viewing on Netflix.

Spooky Rivers, 25 Strange and Mysterious Rivers, Snake Across Our Planet. This is out now. This is the second in your Haunted Hydrology series that began with Spooky Lakes. You wrote this, you illustrated it. It's a great mix of science, geology, history, hydrology. Were there particular books that you loved as a young person that kind of like inspired or informed the ultimate shape of these two volumes?

Geo Rutherford (3:37)

Definitely. I was a child of a science teacher. My mom was an earth science teacher. She has a Ph.D. in geology. Hence, my nickname has always been Geo, owed to Sandra's sense of humor.

When I was a kid, I really loved those different types of books that just were packed full of information. I was such a sciencey kid, I thought I would become a science teacher, but I ended up going the route of doing art instead, but I just loved science information.

The one I wrote to my publisher about when I first started working was, I'm not going to remember the guy's name who made it, but it was the Books of Castles, where it was like a cross section of castles, and then you could see what everybody was doing inside the castle. It's like a history of medieval times. I was obsessed with that book as a kid, and so that's kind of the one that stands out in my mind when I was thinking about illustrating this book.