4. Vanessa Veselka: Chicken-Fried Steak & Trying to Grab My Ass - a podcast by Dylan Bandy & Sonya Lea

This week we talk with Vanessa Veselka about the 'quest narrative' and gendered experiences of freedom. "Jack Kerouac never went anywhere. He had cash and he crossed the country—like, he wants a prize??" We talk to her about her popular GQ essay, her novel, and her ideas on class warfare in America. 

Venessa Veselka has been at various times a teenage runaway, a sex worker, a union organizer, and a student of paleontology. Her work appears in Salon, GQ, Bitch Magazine, The Atlantic, Tin House, Zyzzyva, and Best American Essays. Her novel Zazen won the 2012 PEN/Bingham Prize for fiction, and in 2013 she was chosen as a MacDowell Fellow. Her new novel The Great Offshore Grounds is long-listed for the 2020 National Book Award. Buy it at Powell's. 

BITCHCONOCLAST is a podcast about sex, feminism, & power.

In season one, we interview Pacific-Northwest authors Nicole Hardy, Claire Dederer, Elissa Washuta, Vanessa Veselka, Karen Karbo, and Suzanne Morrison about their work and the state of the patriarchy.

Producers: Sonya Lea & Dylan Bandy

Content editor: Dylan Bandy

Sound editor: Nora Knight

Illustration & Logo: Amy Mizrahi

Graphics: Nicole Geslani & Bex Karnofski

Music: Dylan Bandy, Adam Cohen-Leadholm, & Frankie Mars Gunner

Further episodes of BITCHCONOCLAST

Further podcasts by Dylan Bandy & Sonya Lea

Website of Dylan Bandy & Sonya Lea