Author, journalist, and mariner Jessica DuLong stopped by the Bunker to talk about one of the most fascinating books we’ve read here at the Jam. Her book, Saved at the Seawall, chronicles the 800 civil mariners who helped rescue more than 400,000 from New York City on 9/11.
Brad and Jessica took a deep dive into the life of the civil mariners who work with the Coast Guard all across the country and the strength of resolve people show in times of great tragedy.
About Jessica DuLong
A Brooklyn-based, ASJA award-winning author, journalist, historian, ghostwriter, book collaborator, proposal doctor, editor, and writing coach, Jessica DuLong has collaborated on a wide array of narrative and other nonfiction books including: memoir; history; trauma, psychology, and neuroscience; health and wellness; racism, equity, and justice; gender; parenting; law; and personal finance. She has taught writing with Voices From War and The Sackett Street Writers Workshop.
Her first book, My River Chronicles: Rediscovering the Work that Built America; A Personal and Historical Journey (Free Press), explores the value of hands-on work through memoir, history, and reportage. Lauded in The New York Times as “very fine and gutsy,” My River Chronicles won the 2010 American Society of Journalists and Authors Outstanding Book Award for memoir. Gay Talese called the book “elegantly written,” adding that it “carries forward the craft of literary non-fiction with grace and energy.”
Praised as “a confident and sensual writer” by Dwight Garner of The New York Times, DuLong was also named as “one of the best of the new generation of narrative journalists” by Mark Kramer, founding director of Harvard University’s Nieman Foundation Program on Narrative Journalism.
DuLong’s journalism has been published by CNN.com, Newsweek International, Rolling Stone, Psychology Today, New York History, Huffington Post, Newsday, Parenting, CosmoGIRL!, and Today’s Machining World. Her media appearances include: Spike Lee’s HBO docu-series “NYC Epicenters 9/11→2021½,” TODAY show, CBS Sunday Morning, USA Today, History Channel, C-Span, NY1 “NYT Close Up with Sam Roberts,” WNYC’s “Leonard Lopate,” Martha Stewart Living Radio, The New York Times, and the New Yorker. She also appears as Jessica, who stands “at the controls in the noisy engine room,” in Maira Kalman’s picture book, Fireboat: The Heroic Adventures of the John J. Harvey.
DuLong is also a DONA-certified postpartum doula and a USCG-licensed marine engineer who served aboard retired 1931 NYC fireboat John J. Harvey for two decades, 11 years as chief.
