Vulgar History - Author Interview： Claudia Cravens (Lucky Red)

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00:00:30.000 Hello, and welcome to Vulgar History, a feminist women's history comedy podcast.

00:00:35.660 My name is Anne Foster, and today I'm bringing you an interview with author Claudia Cravens.

00:00:40.720 So she's the author of a new novel that is called Lucky Red, which is a queer reimagining

00:00:46.800 of the American Western genre. It's set in 1877 in Dodge City, and it's about a young

00:00:55.540 girl named Bridget, who winds up working there for a women owned whorehouse, basically, and then she 0.94

00:01:01.820 falls in love with a sharpshooter who is also who's a really butch woman. And it's really it's 0.98

00:01:08.180 such a good book. And it's also really interesting. And when I read it, I was like, I need to talk to

00:01:13.260 Claudia and to share this on the podcast, because it's just the way that she interrogates history,

00:01:17.820 the way that she looks at sex work, the role of women in American history, but also looking at

00:01:24.400 queer women in history. It's really interesting. And I was really excited to talk to her about it.

00:01:29.680 So I hope you enjoy this interview with author Claudia Cravens about her debut novel, Lucky Red.

00:01:38.720 So I'm joined today by Claudia Cravens, author of Lucky Red, which is a book I devoured. I think I

00:01:46.440 just sat down to read it and could not. I just read the whole thing all in one go. Honestly,

00:01:50.340 It was really good. I'm really excited to talk to you. Welcome, Claudia.

00:01:54.340 Oh, thank you so much for having me. And I'm so happy you enjoyed the book.

00:01:57.980 Yeah, it was. I'm really excited to have you on the podcast to talk about it. I think

00:02:02.080 I invited you before I'd even read the book. And then I read the book and I'm like,

00:02:05.300 oh, I have so many questions. So first, can you just explain to everybody sort of, you know,

00:02:09.500 what's the elevator pitch? What's your book about?

00:02:11.700 Yeah, absolutely. Lucky Red is a queer feminist Western. Every Western features this hooker with 1.00

00:02:18.000 a heart of gold, whose job it usually is to help someone else, usually a man, have an adventure. 0.67

00:02:23.160 And in Lucky Red, she gets to tell her own story in her own words. She falls in love with a badass

00:02:28.680 lady bounty hunter. And then when everything goes terribly wrong, she and her two best friends have

00:02:33.700 no choice but to saddle up, ride out, and sort everybody out themselves. I have to say, first of

00:02:39.160 all, like women getting revenge is one of my favorite genres. So I was excited that that

00:02:46.740 element is there. Yeah, it's always a good time. So set the scene. So it takes place in like the

00:02:53.200 Wild West, like Dodge City. So did you draw from any, did you do any historical research to sort

00:02:59.460 of like learn more about what life was like there? Sort of. Yeah. My research process is really from

00:03:04.560 the ground up. My biggest priority when creating this historical setting was to make everything

00:03:11.420 really feel real. So I worked very much from the day-to-day sensory experiences that people would

00:03:20.020 have and use that to build up. A lot of my research was around the weather and the grass

00:03:27.240 and what people were drinking and what it would taste like. And then a huge component of my

00:03:33.280 research was about clothing. My mom is trained as a costume designer and has this encyclopedic

00:03:39.640 knowledge of historical American clothing. So I asked her so many questions. I would like

00:03:46.660 watch Westerns or do image searches or look at old advertisements and then send her in our text

00:03:52.780 chain, like a picture and be like, okay, what's the texture of this shirt? Like is duck canvas

00:03:58.660 the right word for these kinds of pants and stuff like that. And so it was all of that, like built

00:04:04.940 up this wonderfully like detailed present world that I want because I mean we live and die in the

00:04:12.120 day-to-day right like that's where your whole life takes place in like the taste of your coffee and

00:04:18.140 the way that your keys feel in your pocket and how your clothes fit and so I looked for historical

00:04:24.060 detail that would help all of that feel really real and then sort of worked my way up from there

00:04:29.800 and so when you were first thinking of this story I'm just curious did it start from a

00:04:34.560 character or did it start from a plot point or was it did it come from what you were saying like

00:04:38.980 well the hooker with the heart of gold what's her story like what what was the first inspiration do

00:04:42.880 you remember yeah the very first thing I created was the character of Spartan Lee the lady bounty 0.99

00:04:49.120 hunter my original pitch to my best friend was okay so like Han Solo but like a really hot queer 0.99

00:04:57.600 woman because I love I love the trope of the mysterious stranger and the like and the scound 1.00

00:05:03.620 the lovable scoundrel you know they're always so much fun but they're almost always dudes and why 0.97

00:05:08.800 do they get to have all the fun so I wanted to create that character as a queer woman and then 0.99

00:05:14.640 once I had Spartan Lee sort of kicking around in my brain I was like okay whose life can she

00:05:20.700 totally mess up and then I sort of tried a few different configurations and then I landed with

00:05:27.060 Bridget and it all just took off so tell everybody about Bridget like who she is how does she how

00:05:32.740 does she start the story off? Bridget is, she's our plucky narrator protagonist. She starts the

00:05:40.480 story off. She's 16. She's absolutely destitute. She takes care of her alcoholic father by just

00:05:47.520 doing odd jobs around town in their hometown of Fort Smith, Arkansas. One day he comes home from

00:05:54.200 a bender and is like, sweetheart, guess what? I traded our house for some land in the West. 1.00

00:06:01.080 like and this like rickety wagon let's go and she's like oh my god okay sure um whatever fine

00:06:10.340 and so she she starts out as this person who's like she's very down on her luck things only go

00:06:17.440 downhill from there for a while for Bridget and her father he he does not survive chapter one

00:06:22.860 she's down on her luck been down on her luck pretty much her whole life but she's got this 0.99

00:06:28.860 like real stubbornness in order to have even survived for as long as she has to even make

00:06:35.480 it to Dodge City she has to be tough she has to be scrappy she has to she has to have this sort 0.98

00:06:41.480 of baseline optimism of like maybe I can make this work um and so you know and like she's impulsive 0.96

00:06:50.840 and she just she's got all this drive and this and she's got this basic insistence that she

00:06:58.220 deserves to live. And that carries her forward all the way to Dodge City in chapter two. And

00:07:04.840 that's where she meets Lila, one of the madams of the Buffalo Queen brothel and saloon, which is 0.98

00:07:10.660 a fictional brothel that I made up that is owned and operated by women. And the story really takes

00:07:18.100 off from there. So I really wanted to reading the book, I'm like, I'm so interested to know about

00:07:23.580 your take on this. So she becomes like she's working in a brothel, like she becomes a sex 0.98

00:07:30.400 worker. And it was I really liked the way that you approached that element of the book, because

00:07:36.460 and I don't know, the word that occurred to me, it wasn't like, was kind of, I don't know,

00:07:41.320 sex work neutral. It wasn't like, this is the greatest job she could have ever had. But it

00:07:46.200 wasn't like this poor fallen woman. It's just kind of like, here's her job. You know, and you 0.89

00:07:50.420 approached it to me the same as if like she got a job as a farmhand or if she got a job in a

00:07:54.740 laundry. It's just like, here's her job. And I found that refreshing and kind of, yeah.

00:08:00.620 I'm so happy to hear you say that because that is exactly how I wanted to approach it. Like

00:08:05.400 she and her fellow sex workers are people with jobs and it's, they're aware that they have a

00:08:12.420 good version of a potentially bad job, but they are people with jobs. They're good at their jobs.

00:08:19.020 they help each other they're competent at their jobs they're like yeah no different than farm

00:08:25.920 hands or seamstresses or teachers or any other jobs that you know I think those are just about 0.90

00:08:33.160 the only three jobs that women could have had at the time maybe homesteaders wife um but you know 0.99

00:08:39.360 they they're just they're competent at it they're good at their jobs and that baseline competence 1.00

00:08:46.860 also like just sort of drives a lot of how they interact and how they treat each other, because

00:08:51.840 they all, because they all at the end of the day have this vested interest in keeping the Buffalo

00:08:57.580 Queen a safe and profitable place. Whenever there's conflict between the women, it always 0.98

00:09:02.940 comes back down to like, okay, but we got to make this work because we got to work together. And I 0.99

00:09:07.940 just, I just really wanted to take that approach of like, it's, it's work like anything else. Like

00:09:13.200 it's you know it's uh it's a job you know and Bridget immediately discovered she's like she's

00:09:18.060 good at it she's like okay cool like I'm good at this job and I've got plenty of food to eat and I 1.00

00:09:24.460 get to hang out with like some neat some cool women who I get along with like great yeah well 1.00

00:09:30.960 and then for her like you were talking about the clothes and stuff too like when I was thinking 0.87

00:09:34.100 about you know what if this book was about someone who joined a laundry or something like there could 0.94

00:09:37.840 have been similar plot points but I think for Bridget going from such absolute destitution to

00:09:43.180 suddenly a life of seeming glamour. I think there's something about that too, where she's 0.75

00:09:47.980 just like, oh, I don't just have a job when I'm being fed, but I have these like beautiful dresses

00:09:51.500 and, you know, I get to sort of like live this, what ostensibly seems like sort of a fancier

00:09:56.700 lifestyle. Yeah, absolutely. Joining the Buffalo Queen is a major upgrade for Bridget. And she's

00:10:04.300 really aware of that. You know, one of the things that happens throughout the book is every time

00:10:08.140 Bridget eats on screen like she tells us exactly what she ate because it's delicious and plentiful 0.74

00:10:16.180 and she's really into it and she suddenly is wearing clothes that fit and look nice and she

00:10:24.420 like there's early in the book there's a scene with her and Lila the madam and where Lila's

00:10:32.720 showing her how to do her face and it's sort of the first time that she looks in the mirror and

00:10:37.460 goes like oh i look good and also like immediately understands how there's a certain power in that

00:10:45.380 in her line of work um and so yeah it's it's all about like how she yeah she moves into this

00:10:52.500 lifestyle that suddenly affords her like comfort and you know she's not gonna sort of moral i think

00:11:00.440 she's you know bridget is a very practical character so she's not gonna like moralize

00:11:04.360 herself out of a like out of a hot meal uh the other thing i would say about the clothes is that

00:11:09.120 there's a color story that follows bridget all the way through which is again like something i 0.72

00:11:14.920 learned from my costumer mom of like bridget starts out the story in faded light pink and

00:11:19.980 then she moves into the bright red of the dresses that she wears when she's working at the buffalo 1.00

00:11:25.160 queen and then she ends the story in like black and purple um and then the madams always wear 0.70

00:11:31.320 dark red but it's it's sort of so it's this arc of like from naive to worldly from you know from

00:11:38.140 passive to active um it's all sort of reflected there in the colors oh that's gorgeous I didn't

00:11:43.920 even notice that but if I read it again now I would and actually just mentioned her naivete

00:11:48.680 and that was something else I wanted to tell you that I also really love when books do this

00:11:53.880 two examples like two like a book that I really love is I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith I

00:11:58.840 don't know if you know that book, but it's similar to Atonement by Ian McEwen, where the main

00:12:03.260 character is a young teenage girl and she misinterprets things. She doesn't understand

00:12:08.100 what her own feelings mean. She doesn't understand the romantic or sexual interactions of adult

00:12:13.660 characters, often to detrimental effect. And so you're reading it as the reader and you're just

00:12:20.460 like, oh my God, no, you're misunderstanding this, but you're there with her and you understand that

00:12:24.420 she doesn't get that. And your book has an element of that too, where I was just like, oh honey,

00:12:28.000 oh no like part of that is just like her coming to understand her own queerness right um and

00:12:35.040 realizing you know her experience of sex with men versus when she meets Spartan Lee and how that

00:12:40.800 makes her feel but then also her understanding of other people's motivations she's very trusting 0.98

00:12:46.200 um which comes to bite her in the butt later on so I thought for you as a writer was it challenging

00:12:52.060 to write, you knew the motivations of the characters, but she doesn't. So how did you 0.83

00:12:57.840 balance that when you were writing it? To be honest, you are giving me a little too much

00:13:03.080 credit when you say that I know all of the motivations of the characters. For me, writing

00:13:07.660 is really a discovery process. My brain is rarely more than 10 pages ahead of my keyboard. So

00:13:15.120 my process is, I write for a while and then I go, oh, well, that's not going to work. I need a new

00:13:20.480 idea and then i'll like outline a new idea and then write for a while and be like oh well that's

00:13:24.400 not gonna work and throw away that outline so like i knew i know some like far off plot points

00:13:29.200 on the horizon but like how we're gonna get there i have no idea um which is which is fun um i mean

00:13:37.960 it's a really fun way to work um but i think like also for bridget's some of bridget's naivete i'm

00:13:44.120 gonna be totally honest is drawn from life i'm a i'm a pretty credulous person by nature i tend

00:13:49.780 to believe people are telling the truth as my default assumption. And that has had some

00:13:54.940 consequences, but also brought incredible people into my life. You know, there's pros and cons to

00:13:59.960 every stance that you can take. But thinking about Bridget's naivete, I also just, I wanted us to go

00:14:06.400 along with her on this emotional journey. And I was remembering that own time in my life. You know,

00:14:13.500 Bridget's discovery of her own feelings and her own desires is, is the part of the book or part

00:14:20.240 of the story that is definitely the most drawn from my own experience of just falling in love

00:14:25.600 for the first time and not with the person that I expected and how that sort of rippled out through

00:14:32.740 my whole life. And the ways that like, part of what Bridget's naivete lets her do is like really

00:14:40.460 follow her heart. I think there are these times in life when what's really in your heart, like

00:14:45.920 really, it has to come out. You have no other choice, but to be yourself. Um, and I wanted to

00:14:52.480 give Bridget that gift of like, you have no choice, but to do what your heart is telling you to do.

00:14:59.020 It's like, this has to happen, baby. And, you know, and I think in order to make that happen,

00:15:04.360 like some of that does have to come from a certain innocence, a certain naivete. Like if she was as

00:15:09.800 savvy as the madams or as educated as her best friend Constance, I don't think she would have

00:15:15.120 been able to wind up with Spartan Lee. I don't think she would have been able to take that plunge.

00:15:21.580 And so like her naivete was also a great tool for me. It just, it sort of opened up some doors of

00:15:28.420 like, okay, if you're not, if you are not suspicious of every new person you meet,

00:15:34.000 if you are not necessarily looking for hidden motives, you can kind of just barrel forward

00:15:40.000 and like, until things go wrong, they go really great. No, exactly. And she, I think my impression

00:15:47.780 of her is she, she sort of stumbles into this work, but it turns out she's good at it. And then

00:15:52.700 she feels, you know, growing up, it was her and her dad, and it was this kind of toxic situation.

00:15:57.740 And then suddenly she has friends and a sense of community and a sense of family. And she's like,

00:16:01.560 this is great. My life is great. What could go wrong? She's not suspicious, wondering what's

00:16:08.040 behind the next door. She's just like, this is good. I could stay here forever. There's

00:16:11.380 a part in the book, I don't think this is spoilery, where she's sort of offered the chance

00:16:17.600 to leave. And she's like, why would I ever do that? Like, no, of course not. Like, it's great

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00:19:30.780 Yeah, and I know the scene you mean and somebody asks her like, well, but how do you feel about this work?

00:19:37.720 And she's like, that's such a childish question.

00:19:40.340 I'm well fed.

00:19:42.780 I'm warm.

00:19:43.860 I'm with my friends.

00:19:45.160 like I don't I've never it has never occurred to me to wonder whether I like it like obviously

00:19:51.980 this is great which I think again gets to the like what I was calling the sex work neutrality

00:19:58.740 she's just like this is my job whatever which I think is um especially in the pantheon I don't

00:20:04.680 know a lot about western movies it's not a genre I watch a lot but I watch things growing up like

00:20:09.740 Dr. Quinn medicine woman where like there was a brothel and there's a character there who

00:20:14.200 eventually falls in love with a man and then she leaves the brothel so it's kind of like the

00:20:18.060 narrative that i'm familiar with is that or like i've not read this book or seen this movie but i

00:20:22.900 know redeeming love by francine rivers is like a very famous christian novel about a sex worker who

00:20:29.200 is like redeemed by the love of a good man like like that's often it just came out as a movie

00:20:34.780 very recently um but it seems to me like that's one of the narratives maybe is that somebody's in

00:20:40.460 this job, but if they're a good person, they're going to ultimately leave it, you know? And in

00:20:46.620 your book, you're showing like, no, she's like, quote unquote, a good person. I mean, I think,

00:20:50.140 again, it's a very neutral objective book, but the fact that that's not her goal, she's not like,

00:20:55.460 well, I'll just do this until I can save enough money so I can leave. Like, that's never her

00:20:59.440 thing. She's just like, I'm in this job and it's fine. And to me, that felt kind of revolutionary.

00:21:04.040 Oh, thank you so much. Yeah. I, I, that was really important to me to not have her

00:21:09.340 waiting to be saved from sex work. You know, I think as you alluded to before, there's these

00:21:14.900 sort of two stereotypes of sex workers, especially in historical fiction, where they're either like

00:21:20.320 the fallen woman who sort of like coughs into a handkerchief. And then there's like the root

00:21:26.120 and toot and happy hooker. And those, I'm sure that people absolutely live their lives in those

00:21:35.520 personas as well. But I feel like a lot of it would have just been like, they're well-compensated

00:21:40.300 professionals. And there is like, okay, so I'm not a historian and my research process,

00:21:46.940 because it's so ground up is also somewhat chaotic. But one of the things I bumped up

00:21:53.180 against a few times was that like, especially for women at this time who were doing like higher end

00:21:59.140 sex work, like the disdain between them and quote unquote, respectable women was mutual, 0.93

00:22:04.320 that they were like okay so you're married and you can like go out in society and everybody 1.00

00:22:10.800 respects you and that seems very nice for you sweetheart but I have my own money and my own 0.98

00:22:17.140 life and you're you're also having sex for bed and board but your trick owns you body and soul 0.83

00:22:25.160 I am a free agent and you know and like there's obviously that's an unbelievable simplification 0.99

00:22:33.540 obviously like sex work is complex um marriage is complex the roles of women in the u.s and u.s

00:22:42.340 history are very complex but there was this touch of like women who are doing higher-end sex work

00:22:47.660 being like why would we want to be you and i think that conversation i think there's a moment in your

00:22:53.600 book where somebody mentions it's like what you just said sort of i think one of the the sex worker

00:22:57.900 characters mentions is like yeah well why would i want to just it's like doing sex work but for

00:23:02.320 one person and I'm much better compensated staying here. Yeah. Yeah. There's a scene where

00:23:10.540 Bridget's best friend Constance takes her shopping in town and Constance is a little closer to a

00:23:16.380 fallen woman. She was well-educated. She was married and is now widowed and came to sex work

00:23:22.860 as a widow looking to survive. And there's a scene where Constance takes Bridget shopping in town and 0.93

00:23:29.680 they encounter some respectable women who shun them and shame them uh very publicly and constance

00:23:36.740 is really upset and bridget sort of drags her away um drags her back towards the buffalo queen and 0.99

00:23:42.900 she's that's she says basically like what do they have that we lack except for noses to wipe and

00:23:48.980 shirts to mend and runner beans to put up before the fall like and then she basically bridget is 1.00

00:23:54.560 like giving Constance a lesson in like how not to give a fuck. And yeah. And it's very much like, 0.99

00:24:00.260 what do they have that you want girl? Like, no, exactly. And that's what I found again, 0.95

00:24:05.400 just refreshing in your book that it's not, well, I think Bridget is just coming into this from a

00:24:09.480 very, I think you said like a very pragmatic point of view. She's just like, here's my job.

00:24:13.080 Great. I'm doing this job. I have food. I'm good. Like she's not coming into it with the

00:24:17.580 preconceptions of, of those higher society women, or maybe somebody who had been in a different,

00:24:22.520 like Constance. And that's a really good example of somebody who has sort of, she's absorbed those

00:24:29.240 cultural concepts because she knows how people from another echelon view their work. So it,

00:24:36.080 I don't know, I just found it really refreshing. And even in your book, like there's in other sorts

00:24:41.540 of works written by somebody else, there might've been like, oh no, a pregnancy scare or like an

00:24:46.260 abortion gone wrong or whatever. And your book is just kind of like, I'm sure, you know, birth

00:24:51.780 control and pregnancy scares and abortions are happening, but it's kind of like, but they're

00:24:55.700 good. They're handling it. They know what to do. Like, let's move on. And I appreciated that also.

00:25:01.240 Oh, thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Um, those are definitely like things that I thought about a lot

00:25:06.540 and did some research on and sort of poked her and like, sort of thought about like,

00:25:11.460 how do I want this to be a part of the story? And at the end of the day, I was like,

00:25:14.960 I just really want to focus on how they are pros. They know what they're doing. And so it's worked

00:25:22.660 in early on as Lila, the madam saying to Bridget, like, you know how to tell if you're pregnant,

00:25:28.020 if you are, let us know the sooner, the better we will figure it out. But like, that it's, 1.00

00:25:35.080 that it's like, it's priced in as a cost of doing business, um, that this might happen.

00:25:40.560 No. And yeah, I remember that part of the story and I'm like, okay, it's like, you know,

00:25:43.380 you've covered your basis. And I'm like, that's fine. Like, that's not what the story is about.

00:25:46.700 And I do want to bring back, we've been talking a lot about her work. And that's really interesting

00:25:49.580 to me. But I do. The first thing you said, like the, the first idea, like the spark of idea for

00:25:54.900 this book was Spartan Lee. So I want to talk about that character as well. This like lady,

00:26:00.080 bounty hunter, queer, female, Han Solo, love interest. So what, when you were writing that

00:26:09.060 character were you able to draw like what sort of um historical precedents are you looking at or

00:26:14.220 you're more looking at the sort of concept of like this character in a western and approaching it from

00:26:18.540 that direction i started with the concept spartan lee is basically like a fantasy i created her from 0.95

00:26:26.600 a position of like just pure queer girl fantasy land of like here comes this like gorgeous capable 1.00

00:26:35.100 badass butch woman who's just going to turn your whole life upside down. I really built it from 1.00

00:26:41.100 there. Spartan Lee is sort of the most archetypal character in the whole story. She's the mysterious

00:26:48.460 stranger who rides into town. So I started with that simple, but very potent trope of a character.

00:26:57.520 And I was just like, but you know what? Let's make her a girl and just let it ride and see what

00:27:02.840 happens and it's a great name by the way Spartan Lee oh my god oh thank you so much I just I plucked

00:27:09.880 it out of the ether yeah no it was it's it's such a it's the same sort of like archetypal sort of

00:27:15.640 like iconic name that a male character might have had in a similar sort of western story I think

00:27:21.060 yeah and so their relationship to each other is obviously like a large part of the book as well

00:27:27.980 and how that helps Bridget sort of develop and grow as a person.

00:27:31.920 And then I'm not going to get into the whole third act of the book 0.50

00:27:35.160 and the revenge angle, but just like know that Bridget does learn 1.00

00:27:40.700 how to shoot a gun and it comes in handy.

00:27:43.220 So when you were thinking about it, were you, the whole like,

00:27:47.420 you know, bury your gaze trope and stuff,

00:27:49.780 like was that something that you were concerned with,

00:27:52.040 with the, you know, the two characters?

00:27:55.360 And I don't want you to reveal like, do they have a happy ending

00:27:57.840 or not, but just like, was that something you were thinking about? Like to have a tragic story

00:28:03.320 versus not a tragic story and what that could mean? Yeah, I, I definitely, and yeah, I'm going

00:28:09.420 to try to thread the needle of like not spoiling, but also this is something that I've thought a

00:28:15.180 lot about and really thought about in the course of writing the book because yeah, because bury

00:28:20.080 your gaze is such a trope, but it's so, it's so haze code. It's so like pay for your immoral

00:28:25.740 behavior, like old school bullshit. I think for me, what I kept front and center as I was thinking 1.00

00:28:34.660 about the plot and as I was thinking in particular about the relationship between Bridget and Spartan

00:28:39.880 Lee was I knew that everything had to be taking Bridget towards total agency. Everything had to

00:28:48.160 be taking Bridget towards feeling like the master of her fate, feeling like she was the one who

00:28:55.600 could decide the course of her life and how she, what she wanted to have happen and how that was

00:29:01.320 going to happen. And so every choice that I made about their relationship was all just sort of like

00:29:07.240 what's going to make Bridget feel the most like herself, whether that's winding up together in a

00:29:13.880 happy ending or something else happening. It was all about like, what's going to make Bridget the

00:29:20.560 most fulfilled and powerful and filled with agency and a sense of self and your book is

00:29:29.020 written I believe in the past tense first person past tense am I remembering correctly yeah so

00:29:35.400 which I will sometimes find reassuring to know that like this character is going to be okay

00:29:40.900 because she sort of she alludes a couple times vaguely to like oh I met some people and I'm like

00:29:45.360 okay she's going to go on and have further adventures like Bridget it's like okay she's

00:29:48.880 going to be okay. Which, again, personally, I find reassuring to know about a main character.

00:29:53.720 But yeah, and just the, there's so many things in the book, like it's primarily a Western,

00:30:00.160 there is a love story in it. It's not a romance novel by any means. So I think,

00:30:06.740 yeah, so in terms of the expectations for the ending, it would be different if this was,

00:30:10.520 you know, just a love story. But that's kind of one element of a bigger thing.

00:30:15.640 But yeah, I was wondering as we were getting, as I was getting more towards the end of the book,

00:30:18.660 I was just like, what's going to happen to these characters?

00:30:20.760 And I'm like, oh my gosh, that must have been such a huge thing for Claudia to consider. 0.88

00:30:24.800 Like just the, yeah, just telling this queer story and what, how it's going to land.

00:30:30.020 And I thought about, I thought a lot about like, how is this going to land? 0.66

00:30:33.880 You know, because it's a Western first and foremost,

00:30:37.540 Westerns are always about like who the protagonist really is.

00:30:41.980 And so everything, every choice that I made, especially in the third act,

00:30:46.940 um was all about like okay what's gonna make Bridget the most Bridget what's the most Bridget

00:30:53.360 thing she could do right now um just every step of the way the character who the supporting 1.00

00:31:00.280 character I just wanted to give a little shout out to this one character is her name Sally the 1.00

00:31:04.520 one who arrives a bit later that's her name or yeah yeah I love a bitch character and Sally 1.00

00:31:13.480 sweeps it to this book and she's bringing us to this like amy march from little women 0.97

00:31:17.940 sort of energy where i was just like oh yes oh i enjoy this so i like that you've got that as well

00:31:23.960 you know it's not like bridget comes into this world and everyone at the at the buffalo queen

00:31:28.640 is like nice and kind and helpful and supportive it's like no no there's like there's people there

00:31:32.840 with all different kinds of personalities but i don't know this is what i'm saying it's like i

00:31:37.540 love a revenge book i love a book where the main character is naive and misinterprets something

00:31:42.120 kind of terribly. And I love a bitch character. So I was just like, oh, this book is everything 0.99

00:31:46.200 for me. Oh, I'm so happy to hear that. Yeah, yeah. You know, someone's got to be a bitch.

00:31:52.000 And not because it's a house full of women, but because it's a workplace. Like there is a 1.00

00:31:55.840 there is a version of Lucky Red that's basically a workplace comedy,

00:32:00.360 you know, and so like, somebody's got to be difficult. But you know, then it always spins

00:32:04.660 back to that, that issue of that competence of like, Sally's a bitch, but she's really good 0.97

00:32:11.360 her job um no exactly and he's you know and I was really tough but she's an amazing boss exactly 0.96

00:32:18.140 and then you're saying like how at the end of the day it's like they all know that they need

00:32:22.020 this business to succeed because that's how they can keep themselves getting paid and keep

00:32:26.240 themselves living pretty decently so even if exactly like in any workplace it's like well

00:32:31.020 we might not all always get along or like each other but here's like we got to work together

00:32:35.740 yeah yeah and they gotta live together yeah yeah so there's that element as well I don't know it

00:32:43.700 just there's there's so many fun and interesting things about this book I think I don't know for

00:32:48.620 me again I'm just like sitting here flattering your book which I hope makes you feel good but

00:32:52.660 like thank you so much yeah I love it let's just keep let's talk all day yeah but I think that you

00:32:57.640 like it's an ambitious thing you're doing but it goes down so easy like I said like I was reading

00:33:02.860 it and I wasn't being like oh you know making points to like have an academic discussion with

00:33:06.820 you I was just like hell yeah like what's gonna happen next like it's just like so readable and

00:33:11.060 fun which I think is what westerns are like that's what they're supposed to be like that's why people

00:33:14.740 love them right they're supposed to be so fun and I'm so glad you had a good time because like that

00:33:20.020 was the main thing I was going for I was like I wrote a book I wanted to read I love awesome

00:33:26.480 stories about cool people doing amazing shit. Like that's what I like. So that's what I wanted 0.83

00:33:33.100 to create. And I wanted it to feel real and lively. And so I'm, I'm so glad that that's

00:33:39.720 the experience you had. And yeah. And Westerns are such a fun genre. I mean, and I'm not here

00:33:45.840 to apologize for like John Wayne movies or anything like that. Like it's also a highly

00:33:52.020 problematic genre um with you know capital p and there's a lot of issues but it's also like

00:34:00.040 at the center of it there's this really fun tension to play with where there's this huge

00:34:06.880 scope for massive emotional arcs people can discover who they really are and fall in love

00:34:13.040 with the first for the first time and like seek true catharsis through vengeance and like all of

00:34:17.840 these amazing huge arcs but then it's in tension with this very very demanding physical reality

00:34:24.040 where like okay cool yeah you can you can achieve like total self-actualization but

00:34:32.380 if you don't know how to ride a horse and build a fire and shoot a gun you're going to be in

00:34:36.980 trouble like today um and i just i love that tension and that like that is what i feel like

00:34:43.100 is really at the heart of Westerns is this tension between huge emotional landscapes and then a

00:34:49.480 physical landscape that's like, yeah, but I'm full of snakes and they're poisonous.

00:34:53.720 No, exactly. So it's, it's, yeah, it's such a fun genre. Like that, like you said, there's

00:34:59.040 other problems historically with the genre, but just like inherently at its core, like,

00:35:03.980 yes, that's a really fun area to play around in. And your book, this podcast is coming out,

00:35:08.980 I think, I forget if it's like the week, what day is your book published?

00:35:12.780 June 20th.

00:35:13.820 Yeah. So this podcast is coming out like the week that is published. So by the time people

00:35:17.320 are listening to this, they can, they can go buy a copy of it, whatever. And do you have a website

00:35:22.980 or social media where people can follow? Cause I'm sure you're going to have events and things

00:35:26.580 that week. Yeah, absolutely. You can find me at claudiacravens.com or on Twitter at Claudia

00:35:34.420 underscore Cravens. Or if you also want to see pictures of my very cute dog, you can find me on

00:35:39.820 Instagram at at Claudia dot Cravens. So I mean, again, it's funny, because I'm talking to you

00:35:46.200 before the book comes out, but this is coming when the book comes out. But I'll just say like,

00:35:50.500 best of luck with the launch and everything. Is it coincidental or intentional that the book is

00:35:55.020 coming out during Pride Month? Yeah, no, it's intentional. We wanted it to be a part of the

00:36:00.800 pride celebration. Well, and I think it's, again, like just the fact that it's such a fun,

00:36:06.320 interesting book, I think really adds to the landscape of queer literature. You know, it's,

00:36:12.640 I don't know, it's just a weird, interesting, new, new voice that I think I, I hope lots of

00:36:19.240 people come to read this book. Oh, thank you so much. Yeah. I, I hope everybody who reads it

00:36:25.360 really enjoys it. And, you know, my big, my big hope for the book is that anybody who's ever been

00:36:31.380 told that you need to put what your heart is telling you behind good sense. I hope that all

00:36:37.560 of those people find some kinship with Bridget and feel seen. Well, thank you so much for joining

00:36:42.620 me today. And I mean, best of luck with the book launch week event that is again, as people hear

00:36:46.860 this currently happening. Oh, thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me.

00:36:52.180 so after hearing that interview i have to assume you all want to go out immediately and read this

00:36:59.520 book and guess what you can because it was just released this week and so you can read it there's

00:37:03.320 a book audiobook ebook you can get it from anywhere where you normally get books from

00:37:08.360 including your local public library potentially and if you buy it using the link that's in the

00:37:13.460 show notes at bookshop.org then a little bit of money goes to support this podcast but honestly

00:37:18.240 it's such a good book. Like I said, in the interview, I just sat, I read it all in one

00:37:22.020 sitting. It's so, it's just so propulsively interesting and fun and feminist and good.

00:37:28.340 So Lucky Ride by Claudie Cravens, you shall read it. And if you want to keep up with me

00:37:33.580 in this podcast, I'm on Instagram at vulgarhistorypod. I'm on TikTok at vulgarhistory.

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00:37:43.660 at least $1 a month, then you get early ad-free access to all episodes of this podcast. And if

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00:38:10.980 sounds like it's better to go through the red bubble store which is vulgarhistory.redbubble.com

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00:38:52.600 as well. And anyway, thank you so much for listening to the podcast. Until next time,

00:38:57.300 keep your pants on and your tits out. 0.99

00:39:01.080 Folger History is hosted, written, and researched by Anne Foster and edited by Christina Lumagi. 0.99

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Vulgar History - June 23, 2023

Author Interview： Claudia Cravens (Lucky Red)

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Transcript