Vulgar History Podcast
What’s The Real Story of Malinalli? (with Veronica Chapa)
March 12, 2025
Hello, and welcome to Vulgar History, a feminist women’s history comedy podcast. And guess what? It’s March. March is Women’s History Month. I mean, on this podcast, we’re doing women’s history 12 months out of the year, like, every single week, it’s women’s history. But Women’s History Month is a time when some people who maybe don’t think about it as much start thinking about it. And I’m always really excited every year to see, like, maybe Vulgar History is going to be included on some lists somewhere of, like, “Women’s History Podcasts You Should Listen To.” And I’m excited that this year it is! We’re on a list on Amazon Music right now. So, I really wanted to shout out to Amazon Music for featuring Vulgar History this month, Women’s History Month, we’re doing feminist women’s history. And so, I just want to say check out Vulgar History on Amazon Music and check out their other lists there of other podcasts that might be of interest to you if you’re interested in women’s history, which obviously you are because you’re listening to this show.
I do just want to take a short moment, a little PSA moment, to let everybody know that I’m living in Canada. I know a lot of listeners are in the United States and I just wanted to let you know that I see the nightmare you’re living through, and it sucks. Where I see the role of this podcast is, kind of, fun distraction and also reassuring and maybe, like, a cozy thing that you can look forward to every week, and that’s what the show is going to be. But I did just want to mention that because we’re doing these episodes, we’re talking about, you know, stories from history and stuff, it doesn’t mean I’m not aware of what’s happening in the world. And so, to my American listeners: I see you, my heart is with you, it’s all fucking crazy, and this podcast is going to be here for you every week to give you a little moment of tits out sunshine.
So anyway, this week, I’m so excited… I’m so excited. I was excited about this book when I saw that it existed, I was so excited when this author agreed to be on the podcast, and now I’m so excited for you to hear this amazing conversation that I had. So, Veronica Chapa is the author who we’re talking with today. She’s a Mexican-American author, and her novel Malinalli is just coming out… Let me double-check the publication date, March 11th. So, you’re listening to this, and you should be able to preorder or to order that book. You should be able to order. I was just double-checking the date when you’re listening to this. Hell, yes! Go out, buy this book, place a library hold on it. If your library doesn’t have this book, message your library and suggest that they buy it. That’s a thing you can do, by the way. I work for a library myself, personally, and I can say if your local library doesn’t have a book you want to read, there’s always, 100 percent, every library has a form somewhere on their website where you can suggest a book.
So anyway, this book is called Malinalli. And when I first saw the title, I was like, “Malinalli!” But that’s one of the names of this figure who we’ve talked about on the podcast a few years ago in the Internationale analysis. I called her Malintzin in that episode, she’s also known as La Malinche and Malinalli is one of her names. And I saw the title and I thought, “Oh, I wonder if this is a book… You know, it couldn’t possibly be a book about that person, could it?” And it is! It’s a beautiful, gorgeous novel that combines narrative fiction with some magical realism, with some fantasy moments, with historical fiction, all of which to just really explore and examine and celebrate the story of this woman who… I did a podcast about her. So, as I said, a couple of years ago during the Internationale season.
If you haven’t heard that episode, briefly, we describe the story in this interview, but I’ll just let you know that she, Malinalli, was an Indigenous woman, a Nahua woman who lived in what we now would call Mexico, pre-colonialization, before the Spanish got there, she lived there. And then the Spanish got there while she was still there, and then she wound up (and we’ll talk in this episode how that happened), she wound up being a translator for Hernán Cortés, who was kind of a famous/notorious person who came from Spain to colonize North America. She became his translator because she had a command of, like, four different languages. She was very, very talented, but also, she was really talented at speaking and translating. She was with him when he went to the great, huge metropolis of Tenochtitlan, where he met with Montezuma, who was the emperor there and this is kind of what she’s best known for doing. And then in history, well, not even in history, just sort of like, in folktales, in slang, her name, especially the, calling her La Malinche, became known as kind of a notorious person. Some people saw her as, like, it was because of her that the Spanish were able to conquest Mexico, which is not true. I mean, she was translating for Hernán Cortés, but a lot of other things led to that happening, including, like, Spain sending over armies who had guns and horses and ships and also smallpox. Like so many situations, and we talk about this in the episode, she, a very young woman, she’s like a teenager, gets blamed for this.
And so, in this book, Malinalli, Veronica Chapa is giving her her voice back. She is telling her own story; she is the main character, she is the hero of this book. So, as described by the book itself on the book’s website, “This is the first novel to reimagine and reinterpret Malinalli’s story with the empathy, humanity and awe she’s always deserved.” And this was published by… Simon & Schuster has an imprint called Atria, Atria has an imprint called Primero Sueño Press, which just started up. We talked about that a bit in the interview as well because it’s a press that is celebrating and sharing the stories of Latina culture. So, this book is just so perfect for that imprint. Veronica, like, I talk to a lot of authors on the show, and I don’t know if I’ve— She is up there with the people who are the most passionate and the most dedicated to the person that she’s writing about. And it was really, it’s an emotional conversation, and it’s a real conversation, and I think you’re really going to get something out of this. So, this is my interview with Veronica Chapa, author of the new novel, Malinalli.
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Ann: Welcome, Veronica Chapa, author of the new novel Malinalli, which tells the story of a figure we’ve talked about on this podcast, but it was a while ago. Everyone listening to this today hasn’t necessarily heard that episode of the podcast, and the people who did, it was a while ago. So, part of what I’m excited to talk about with you today is just to retell the story of this real-life figure who your novel is about. But I’m also so interested to know how you came to write the novel. Actually, I should say welcome, Veronica. [laughs]
Veronica: Hi Ann, it’s great to be here. Thank you for inviting me.
Ann: We’re both so excited. So, tell me, actually, my first question for you, just to, like, set the scene. Do you remember when you first heard— Oh, I want to clarify too. So, Malinalli is one of the many names that this person is known by. She’s also known as La Malinche, Malintzin, Doña Marina. When did you first hear about this figure? Do you remember?
Veronica: I first heard about her, I didn’t know who she was, when I was little, probably in grade school. And I overheard a conversation, and I heard someone say her the more popular name, La Malinche, and it came out like “La Malinche,” and it sounded… It came out like a slap; it was said with such contempt. And it was like, “What? Who?” And then it was followed by a swear word. I sort of understood the Spanish, the swear word, what that meant, sort of, and I was like, “Oh my— What? What did she…?” I knew then it was a woman that they were talking about, and I was like, “Who is she? What did she do?” That was just, like, the little seed that was planted in my head.
And then later, in my late teens, I read Bernal Díaz del Castillo’s history, The True History of the Conquest of New Spain, so I’m reading about the conquest and there she is. And the image that stuck out in my head was of this young woman—in my book, she’s 18 years old, but historians think she may have been as young as, like, 15—this young woman who was gifted to Cortés after a battle and the Mayas lost. They gave Cortés fine cotton cloth, gold, food and 20 women. Malinalli was one of those women, she was a war prize. So, she was handed over during Cortés’s journey to the Mexica city of Tenochtitlan into the interior of Mexico. You know, he discovers that she can speak a language that his other interpreter, a Spaniard who had been shipwrecked on the coast of what is now Mexico, he didn’t understand these ambassadors who were coming to Cortés and this young woman, she did. So, their communication was vital to him. And between Cortés, this other translator Aguilar and Malinalli, they were able to… Aguilar would translate Cortés’s words from Spanish into Maya. Malinalli would take the Maya and translate it into Nahua, which is the language spoken by the ambassadors from Montezuma, and then you were able to establish some dialogue.
But in the book, in Díaz del Castillo’s book, I was just struck by, here’s this here’s this young girl standing between Hernán Cortés and Montezuma, translating for them, not just translating for them, but it was, like, her voice. She was at the centre of this major confrontation and in power. They were her words that were going back and forth. And I was just like, “How? Who? How did this happen? Was there something in her in her upbringing that prepared her for something like this?” I saw her as, like, courageous and gutsy and wow! Smart, because, you know, at that point, by the time she met Montezuma, she was able to speak and understand Spanish. She is this linguistic savant who’s speaking four languages. And I was just like, you know, I was this shy Mexican American girl with, you know, a grasp on Spanish that was far from perfect, and that just blew me away that she was commanding that attention and that power. And then I’m putting it together with the little seed that had been implanted in my brain that this was someone really horrible and bad and bad for Mexico, bad for Mexicans, and she’s the cause, you know, because of her, Cortés and his, you know, band of 300 soldiers at that time were able to conquer Mexico, which is baloney. It’s just bullshit. So, this young woman shoulders the blame for this catastrophe, this horrific event, the downfall of this mighty, this amazing, what we call today an empire, is simply ridiculous.
So, about 20 years ago, I got serious about writing about her. But sadly, my first attempts were just atrocious, and it wasn’t even the main story; I was writing around it. It was a story within a larger story, but it was Malinalli’s part that was more compelling to… You know, I belong to a writing group, and that story was more compelling to them and more interesting to me. But again, I felt like, [sighs] I was like, ”Who am I to write this story?” I thought, well, “Who am I?” I just started researching, and the more I researched and the more I’m hearing how she was just vilified and so maligned and just so kicked around, I became even more and more convinced that I wanted to tell her story. I wanted to see the world. I wanted people to see the world through her eyes. I wanted people to know that her life did not start with Hernán Cortés.
Ann: That really struck me because I got an early copy of your book that I got to read, and I really enjoyed it. And I was surprised and then I thought, “Why am I surprised?” at how much of the book is pre-Cortés, how much you’re talking about her life. And, like, of course it is because what she’s best known for, but there’s so much more about her that doesn’t define who she was. So, I really appreciated how much of her pre-contact story you put in it. But also at the same time, where I’m curious is about what your research process was like because most of what we know about her comes from the Spanish records. Once they interacted with her. So, how did you go about figuring out what her life was like before all of that? Like, you know, before slavery, like the very beginning of your book, when she’s just living in this community and she doesn’t know what life has to bring for her. Like, how did you delve into that?
Veronica: Well, as you know from your previous radiocast, there’s very little about her. She left us no letters, no journals, diaries, anything like that. And the story of the conquest, even the on-the-ground eyewitness accounts of what happened there, you know, are limited. We have Hernán Cortés’s letters to the king of Spain, five letters in which he mentions her twice. In one sentence, he refers to her as “the Indian woman, la lengua,” the tongue, meaning the interpreter. But it’s just, like, in the way la lengua kind of pops off the page. It’s like, she’s like a body part. And Díaz del Castillo talks about her… or back to Cortés in a different letter, he names her at least, Marina, and explains, you know, “She was gifted to me.” You know, and that’s kind of it. The voice he used and was able to communicate through is two lines in these five letters as if, like, he figured it out all by himself. They’re very self-serving letters, of course. But Diaz del Castillo spends a little bit more time talking about her, and still, it’s still not much. And during battles, you know, he’s just exclaims that, you know, “She had the courage even greater than a woman’s.” He admits that, you know, if not for her, they would have been killed.
And so, with those limitations, I turned to Indigenous accounts, and there are Indigenous accounts, but many of them, the majority of them, are filtered through the lens of the Spanish friars who came, you know, immediately as soon as— After Tenochtitlan, which happens in 1521, Cortés… Let me back up. Cortés and Malinalli, their meeting occurs in 1519. So, in 1521, when the city falls, the priest, you know, came over very quickly from Spain because now the mission, you know, can move forward of evangelizing these people and bringing them over to the true Christ and all that. So, we have accounts that they were able to, through their interviews, and you know, once the people were learning the Roman alphabet, even some of the noble Nahua men were able to then take the stories of the elders and transcribe them to have that record. They were very good about kind of drawing the stories of myths, and there’s poems and there’s war chants and there’s songs, they were very good about trying to gather all of that up. But again, it’s through that lens. But there are records that today, now, have come down to us that are a little bit more closer to the source without, you know, that go-between.
Those sources include like, The History of the Indies of New Spain, a General History of the Things of New Spain, that’s The Florentine Codex. One thing to keep in mind, I mean, everyone thinks that everything was lost during the conquest. You know, many of the books that the Nahuas had, they had screen fold text with their glyphs, their method for writing numbers that, you know, talked about rituals or didn’t talk about, but there were signs for those who were like the orators who could use these texts as, kind of like, when they would stand and deliver the history of what happened on this date. And, you know, it would be set to, like, music and possibly dance. So, there is a wealth of information kind of like on the daily life, what they wore, how they ate, cloth textiles, there’s whole chapters about given over to textiles and, you know, the proper raising of a young girl.
So, it occurred to me that the more I read, the more too, I was learning about what it was like to be a woman at that time and growing up as a young girl. And I was also coming across, you know, looking at the… everyone considers the Mexica primarily a patriarchal culture, and I wouldn’t say primarily… the matriarchy was very strong, too. In my readings, I came across a couple of notes in a couple of different places that there was a creation story about the founding of the city of Tenochtitlan and that there was a brother and sister, you know, and it was a fight to see who would be the leader of this group of people. The fight was between the war sun god, Huitzilopochtli and the goddess figure, Malinalxochitl, who was a sorceress. The priests were behind the war god, of course, and they kind of fixed things so the Malinalxochitl, the goddess, and her people ended up being abandoned by the brother. She was actually kind of like, drugged and put into this dream state that she couldn’t get out of. And therefore, the city of Tenochtitlan was founded by, you know, the god, basically, and the whole war god culture. Not to say that the goddess culture was less intimidating or war-minded, but I would think that a feminine sensibility would kind of balance out a little bit the bloodlust, but she was no slouch either. I’m thinking that she was probably the more powerful of the two, but because she was female, she had to be thwarted, she had to be stopped. And it’s like, you know, everyone, the priest and Huitzilopochtli, the war god, they wanted to have the dominance, they wanted the power.
Anyway, so when I found out that and I was thinking — and I’m not the first person to think this — was it possible that the when the Indigenous people saw Malinalli with Cortés, you know, moving across what is now Mexico, moving across the land, is it possible that they thought that she was like that returning goddess coming back to set things right and to assume the throne and kick Montezuma off his throne? I don’t know. But when I read that there was this fight between the male and female powers way back when, my imagination just blew up.
Ann: Well, and that makes me think of just when you’re talking about her coming in and how people would have seen her, which first of all, it just would have been strange in their context and in many contexts in many cultures in the world, to have this teenage girl in this position of authority and power. But I’m thinking about, I hope you know what I mean, those images that were done at the time, those sort of like, two-dimensional drawings of people. It’s Cortés, and then she’s always huge, like proportionately, she’s massive in these… Were they? It was the local people who drew those, I think, I forget. But it’s her and she’s there and her the garb, the huipili… I don’t know how you say it.
Veronica: Huipil.
Ann: People who were recalling these scenes remember her as this outsized figure. So, to me, that would connect, I mean, as you do in your book, like with this goddess, whose name is similar to her name in the first place.
Veronica: Right, right. Yeah, the name translates into “wildgrass flower.” Yeah, well, it’s like, you know, here she is, you know, one of their people backed by these predominantly white men, with these strange weapons, this armour, they didn’t have steel, iron, with these dogs, these huge dogs, and horses! They’d never seen a horse before. To them, it was like this the strange giant deer, another kind of monster. So, seeing a soldier mounted on this horse thing was like, I would think, like looking at this two-headed beast. And so, it’s like, you know, their arms, their lances, their swords are flashing in the sun, she’s walking there. And, you know, I’m thinking like, you know, the army behind her or something, or someone sees, you know, how she’s kind of like, “I don’t think she’s backed by this strange force of men.” It’s like, “What? Who is this? And she’s speaking for them,” you know? She’s communicating. So, they’re like, completely trying to imagine that is just like, “Wow. She must be very powerful. Is she a sorceress? Are they here to do her bidding? What’s going on?” So, there’s, you know, there’s some friction there of like, “Who is this?”
So, I leaned into that a lot and the whole goddess story, you know, I pull it through from the beginning, and it gave me an opportunity as I was learning about women’s lives to develop what it might have been like to grow up in that society with a strong female. Her mother is very strong. And the women, there’s a midwife character who is very powerful. I wanted to concentrate on, you know, I invented… There were priestesses in this time period, of course. There were priests, and I knew the priests went to a special place to learn. And I thought, “Well, what about the priestesses?” So, I invent the Temple of the 18 Moons, which also, I’m getting back to my like, what in this young woman’s past prepared her for this role as interpreter and this ability to stand, you know, front and centre with all of these alpha males who, kind of, you know, were trying to sniff each other out and figure out what to do, how to do it.
You know, Montezuma was a smart guy; I think he was smarter than Cortés. As to, like, why he allowed them to enter and to get as far as Cortés did is the million-dollar question that no one really knows why. And in my book, Malanalli knows that at any minute they can be wiped out. You know, it’s like the ambassadors come and present Cortés with these, you know, these gold disks, silver, all of these treasures and works of featherwork, and fine cotton cloth, more prized than gold. You know, and Cortés keeps asking, “Where’s the gold? Where’s the gold?” And, you know, he’s promised, “It’s in Tenochtitlan. We have to keep going.” And she’s trying to convince them, “You know, these gifts represent a great tribute to you and the king you say you represent.” It’s like, any normal person would take these gifts and say, ”Thank you very much,” and get out and leave the country, just leave, you know? But Cortés, I mean, they’re the centre of the world, and everyone else must think we are, and we’re here on behalf of the king to learn more about these people, and nothing’s going to stop me.
All of the traditions and the rituals that were practiced and people were devoted to it this time and place, you know, these white guys, Spaniards had no… They didn’t care. I mean, just battle practices. There was a ritual that you did before you went into battle where, you know, there would be incense and prayers and chants. There was a time for battle even. And I think Cortés had arrived during a time that “This is not a good time for this. We don’t fight during this period of time.” And Cortés did. And he didn’t take prisoners, you know, they killed people quickly, and the Mexica did not do that.
Ann: What I remember… I’m just remembering from when I was doing my research a couple years ago about this topic, there’s that whole fallacy of just thinking that because the society doesn’t have a certain technology that they’re less intelligent or they’re less important or they’re less whatever. So, for various reasons that I discussed on my other podcast, the Spanish came in, and they had guns, you know, they had giant ships and things, and the Mexica, they did not.
But at the same time, Tenochtitlan, as I recall, was a bigger, more thriving city than, like, anywhere in Spain, London, England. It was a huge metropolis. And I think when I, personally, before I learned this story, I didn’t realize that society was so developed pre-contact, like, that it was this huge… Somebody asked me a while ago, “If you got a time machine, you could go back and see something, what would you want to see?” And I said, “I want to go back and see Tenochtitlan. I want to see what that looked like,” because people tried to imagine it, and it was this glorious, huge, established city. So, Cortés is coming in, and he has to write back to Spain to be like, “Oh, these people, they’re so backwards. I don’t know what they’re doing,” where it’s like, “Actually, they’re kind of doing better than you. Their city is better. They don’t have guns, but like, this city is more established than anywhere in Spain.”
Veronica: Yeah, no, it was a wonder of the world. Cortés talks about it in his letters, Bernal Díaz, just how it was this dream of a place. It was built on a lake, and there were causeways that linked the island of Tenochtitlan to the mainland. And it’s like, you know, I picture them as kind of like this, the sun with the rays of the sun, you know, like, connecting it. And the palaces and the temples, you know, we think of, you know, we go to Mexico City to see the ruins now and we think, you know, everything was like white or gray. And it’s like, no! They were painted. They were, you know, white and yellow and red and, you know, with blue. They were beautifully decorated, they had feathered banners. And the causeways, there were like water closets. The city was probably the cleanest city, one of the most pristine cities in the world at that time, in comparison to like London, Paris, Rome and anywhere in Europe, I would say this city Tenochtitlan was by far the cleanest. There were flowers everywhere.
And again, the textiles were just magnificent. The embroidered cloth, like I said before, was more prized than gold by them. The artisans who lived within Montezuma’s palace complex, I mean, he had the jewelers and the metalsmiths and the mosaic workers and the feather workers right there, you know, working for him, working for the city and everything that was painted in the mosaics. Yes, if I was able to go back in time, that’s where I would want to go most definitely. Everyone, they were just blown away; they had never seen anything like it. They had they had figured out like, they had a plumbing system in the palaces, they had an aqueduct that brought into the city, you know, fresh water from Chapultepec. And, you know, Cortés makes note of the wonders there that, you know, “We have nothing like this back home.” You know, he admits it, and so does so does Díaz. They’re both kind of like, phsooo, you know, this is this is beyond anything that we’ve ever known.
So, yeah, it’s like the Spaniards were the backwards, the barbarians, by far. I mean, if we’re going to get into that, which is kind of, like, probably not a good thing. But yeah, they were they were behind. There was an etiquette that was followed, there were social graces. I mean, they were they were just magnificent in my point of view. It was just a completely different world, one where beauty was expressed and, you know, and there was a dark side to it, too.
Ann: I was just thinking about… So, in your book, like, as in the life of the real Malinalli, like she’s going… She has different eras, I guess I would describe it. But, you know, she’s living with her family, and then she’s taken away, and then there’s this period of enslavement, and then there’s the period where she is with Cortés. But then she’s with Cortés in this city, and then she’s with Cortés in this city, like, she’s kind of going from place to place. So, when you were planning out the book, how what would you think what would be the throughline? You know, so it’s not just, like, in The Odyssey, like, “Now she’s here, now she’s here,” like to have connecting between the different places where she is? Like, she’s the throughline, really, herself, and her advances. So, what did you think about when you were thinking about putting her in all these different situations?
Veronica: I was thinking about a young woman coming into her power, and a young woman going through various phases of her life where, in the beginning, she’s all questions, like, “Who am I? Why did you give me this name?” And it’s like, her twin brother and her father are, you know, are put to death by Montezuma, and she’s just got questions, like any young child who’s faced with trauma, it’s like, you know, “What is this? What’s going on?”
And then she goes away to the Temple of the 18 Moons, where she learns about the goddess and becoming a priestess. And she learns more about Malinalxochitl, the warrior goddess, the sorceress, and she’s like, you know, she wants that kind of magic, that kind of power. And, you know, as she moves through her life, she’s questioning that power when she’s enslaved. I mean, “I have no power, now that I’m a slave,” she thinks it’s like, you know, “I am nothing,” when she’s basically kidnapped and is bought by a Maya merchant prince in my book. And that’s the point where she ends up, you know, meeting Cortés, because she’s handed over, you know, the Maya merchant prince hands Cortés, gives his concubine away to the Spaniards as one of the as a gift.
But she has an agenda. She has an agenda that she’s going to use Cortés to get what she wants, which is to get to Tenochtitlan and to see Montezuma, to get to the bottom of a mystery. She’s also seeking justice and vengeance. But, you know, she gets a little cocky. And as she kind of comes into some of her powers, she gets a little cocky and she thinks, “Oh, [scoffs] I know what I’m doing. I’ve got this all under control.” And you know, the minute you put out into the universe that you’ve got things under control, that things can go south, you know, things go bad really quickly. And she’s humbled during that process of understanding who she is, her gift, you know, her place in the world, what she’s able to manifest and what she’s able to… You know, she becomes like the bridge between these two cultures in my book, by accident, and it’s humbling that someone realizes, “Oh, I’m not that… I’m full of it. I’m just as afraid as everyone else,” and, you know, she turns to the goddesses for help. And, you know, she has to continue this quest; she has to find it within herself, even after she learns that she’s not as perfectly strong as she thought she was.
And yet, she has her magic from the get-go. She knows who she is, she knows what she’s about, and she knows her worth and value. But, you know, she goes through a lot of trials and tribulations in order to understand that about herself, that she’s had power all the time. It’s just, how do you how do you use that? When do you use that? I don’t know, does that make sense? It is a quest. I mean, it was important to me to, you know, it’s so rare that we see women kind of, like, on a hero’s journey. And that’s, you know, it was important to me, like I said, her life did not start with Cortés. I wanted to present a woman in full. She possesses, you know, she’s got a dark side and the light, and she’s a multitude of women, you know, priestess, warrior, who’s a slave, a concubine, she’s a daughter, she’s a sister. But yeah, she’s multidimensional, and with that, emotionally, it brings a lot of complications.
And when I was mapping this out, because of all this movement, which I wanted to track, because it mirrors what actually happened, you know, the Spaniards as they moved from the coast to the interior, to the city on the lakes, I wanted to mirror that as much as possible, because it was important that the book is grounded, it’s rooted in history but, as you know, there’s a lot of magic realism and I pushed that even into fantasy because it worked. But as I was laying this out and thinking about it, I had to create a landscape of her physical movement and an interior landscape. And I’m not smart enough to do all of the fancy software, you know, where I can just kind of like, you know, just type it out, and it’s done. I had to do, like, massive, poster board charts of with Post-it notes, like, “Here’s this scene” or, you know, “She’s in Tlaxcala. What is she thinking? What is she seeing? What is she feeling?” Because again, it’s like, you know, you’re seeing the world through her eyes and feeling it and experiencing it through her senses. I hope, you know, I brought that all to life enough so you can really feel what it was like for her. It’s a lot. It’s a lot of trauma.
Ann: Well, no. And that’s what I think, too, was it was really interesting— I loved reading your book, it’s a wonderful book. And as I was going through it, I was like, “Oh, I remember this!” from when I was doing my research. I remember like, the historical parts. I was like, “Oh! That part. Oh, right.” But as you described it just now, like, it’s all her point of view; it’s her story, it’s her journey. And I really appreciate, like, the title is her name; it’s not just kind of this person who is dragged along on somebody else’s adventure. It’s very much this is her story, she has her own goals. I don’t think that that’s any way dissimilar from what the actual person’s life was really like. Because when you look at what she did and what she accomplished, she was obviously such a strong person who persevered through all of these wildly unexpected shifts in her life. Like, the whole paradigm of what reality was changed for everybody in that region when the Spanish arrived and she kind of found a place for herself, she found power for herself, and she kept going. Like, your book doesn’t get into her whole story. But like, after Cortés leaves, like she keeps finding things to do, making your own choices.
I think in your book, you establish, and I really like how you explain this on the podcast too, like what kind of person, what kind of childhood do you have to develop the skills that she later exhibits? And I think what’s in your book must be similar to what she actually went through, because she did become this person who did have this power. And even if there was another young woman with those language skills, they wouldn’t have necessarily been able to do what she did. Part of that’s inherent, but I think part of that is just like how she was raised and her personality.
Veronica: Yeah, we know very, very little. Bernal Díaz del Castillo, in his book, he says that her mother gave her away to traitors. He wrote his book, like, 40 years after the conquest because… Everyone has an agenda. He kind of wants to get back at all of the books and the writings that are being produced about the conquest, by people who are not there. And so, he’s like, “I was there! I should write my own book.” So, he does. But it’s 40 years later and so he’s using, he’s trying to remember everything, I imagine, and trying to get it all down.
He says that Malinalli’s mother, to get her out of the picture, so a new husband, their son would inherit, she gives Mali away to some traitors who are passing through. And I was just like, I have no doubt that things like that happened, they’ve happened in other places; horrible things happen to children. And as I was reading and learning and, kind of, steeping myself in this matriarchal… The stories of the goddesses are so magnificent, and I’m thinking, “These stories came from someone, from somewhere and it’s here. It’s with these people. It’s with these women.” I wanted her mother to be, she claims she’s a descendant of the Toltecs and the Toltecs were the people who brought the arts and writing and beauty and were also fierce warriors, all of the artistic gifts to the people. And the Mexica were quick to align themselves with descendants and the stories of the Toltecs to give themselves more prestige, to value that their stories are now our stories as well.
So, I just wanted to, again, I wanted this to be a female-centric book because there are no stories. The stories of the conquests are through the eyes of men, it’s men’s lives and soldiers’ lives, and “This guy did this and this guy did that, and we’re here on a mission of God, and we’re the heroes, and we’re amazing.” And I was just like… No. [Ann laughs] I wanted this to be about the women. And I thought to myself, for her to be standing there with such authority, I mean, she’s nervous, she’s a little afraid. Who wouldn’t be? But at the same time, she’s standing and she’s communicating, she’s doing what she has to do and going even beyond that, using some magic to, kind of, try to protect people and to try to lessen the impact of this confrontation. But I was just thinking for her to stand and to think that she can actually control this situation, control these men… She was raised by some strong women and there were strong women in her life who prepared her for this and I think it’s that knowledge that you’re a descendant of this proud, fierce line of women. You know, ancestry is very important in the book and for Latinos in general, family is very important.
I was going to give her and imbue her with this family of strong women, either related by blood or by friendship, it’s a sisterhood. I think that kind of gave her the strength to move forward and remembering… I don’t know, but I’ve been in situations where I’ve gotten myself into this crazy predicament and I’ve heard my grandmother’s voice in my head, my Abuela, saying something to me, you know? And it was the thing that I needed to hear, to know, for me to act. Out of all the things I was learning, it was her voice in my head and I’m like, that’s what she has too. She has the memory, and she has the force of the women who came before her in her veins so she’s able to accomplish what she’s able to accomplish and step up to the moment. As you know, things get a little very dicey for her, anger takes control for a bit, but yeah, it’s like her fierceness kind of transforms her. That was also a mission of the book. It’s, like, her transformation, you know, from a little girl to a priestess to… It’s a constant transformation from one part of her life into another role. And, you know, she’s still the little girl at the end when she sees something that takes her right back to when, you know, she and her brother were playing together down by the river.
Ann: I think it’s such a perfect— Like, you’re so passionate about her and this story, obviously, and I think it’s so wonderful when someone with that passion writes a book about it because clearly, like, your heart is on the page and you can really feel that when you’re reading the book.
I wanted to ask you because the publisher of your book, so it’s Primero Sueño Press, I don’t know if I said that right, which is just a new imprint that’s highlighting these sorts of books. Can you talk about that?
Veronica: No, it’s okay. It’s my editor, Michelle Herrera Mulligan, I had… God, I went through multiple versions of this book, just, you know, and had been working on it for a very long time. It felt like I’d finally gotten it into a place— Well, over a period of time, I would, you know, send out queries to agents and nothing happened. [laughs] But that didn’t stop me. I just kept working. I belonged to the same writing group for, like, 20 years. So, I would show up, you know, I lived in the Chicago area, I would jump on the train, the green line and go out to Oak Park, read my 10 pages, which was a big thing for me because, up to that point, my background is in advertising and other than, you know, doing presentations for clients, I had never read my own work out loud before. So, to read it out loud was very empowering. So, I would read it and then, you know, I’d go back and I’d work on it and, you know, back and forth, I would work on it, you know, write on the weekends, do research whenever I could on the weekends and at night, whatever.
So, over time, you know, I’m working on different— Oh! I just found out this great thing so I’m going to work that into the book. And it was, you know, just, it was quite the journey. And finally, I thought I’d gotten the piece into a place that I was really happy with but in the meantime, you know, rejection after rejection after rejection, as far as agents. I was sending a completed manuscript. And when I started the process, you can only, the accepted way was, you know, you sent your manuscript to one agent at a time and then you’d have to wait to hear back from them and then move on to the next person. So, it took a long time. But in the meantime, I’m working on it, and I’m writing, and I put it aside and I write other things and all this other stuff. And then this opportunity came up. A friend of mine said, “You need to send it to, you know, Michelle, Simon & Schuster.” And I’m like, “You don’t do that.”
Ann: Sending it right to the editor.
Veronica: Yeah, it’s a big… you just do not do that. And I said, “Nope, I’m not going to do that. That’s crazy.” And it got to the point where, [sighs] gosh, I, you know, I did it and I didn’t think anything would happen. [chuckles] And then something happened! I was like, you know, I was not prepared. Because I thought, “Oh, nothing will come of it. I’m just going to keep working on this until I’m in my, you know, eighties.” Because I felt like, I’m working on this story, it’s my journey too as far as what it means to be what it means to be Mexican. I mean, I’m Mexican American, but during the course of writing this book, I know for certainty, and I’m going to cry now, [voice breaks] that my heart and my soul, you know, soy Mexicana, I’m Mexican. So, I mean, I live this, I feel like she’s still inside me, this character. So, it’s quite powerful to see her out in the world right now.
The editor, Michelle Herrara Mulligan at Simon & Schuster, she saw what I had done, and what I was, you know, attempting to do with this real life, you know, historical figure, you know, with this horrible, god, the mythology and what she’s had to shoulder for centuries. She understood what I was trying to get at. So, everything kind of happened for me a little bit backwards. And during the course, you know, the imprint was Atria, which is a division of Simon & Schuster. And as I was, like, working on the manuscript, they gave her, they gave my editor her own imprint. Primero Sueño Press, Primero Sueño is based on a poem by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. I love that connection, because here’s another strong, powerful woman, intelligent and brave and courageous who also, in her way, bucks the system and carves out her own identity, her life, you know, with her writings and her books, and is one of the most magnificent writers ever, as far as I’m concerned. So, I don’t know how you’re going to take that and make it sound interesting, but it was crazy the way it happened. Like I said, I didn’t think… I don’t know, I would probably still be working on this, but she’s gifted. I feel like I was still kind of trying to play within certain boundaries with that, I had, once I found an agent, we spent a Thanksgiving taking, I think my earliest manuscript was, like, 600 pages down to, like, four, and then even, you know, kept working our way down from that.
So, it was a process. It was rewriting. The core of it was always there; the magic was always there; the embroidery threads coming to life, it was always there; the Temple of 18 Moons and the House of Magical Studies, that was a constant. And it was just, like, people wanted just more, more, and wanted to hear more, even more from the women. So, I was just like, “Oh, I’m happy to do that,” and to sideline Cortés a bit more and to present Montezuma as a figure who was, like I said before, very smart. Don’t know why he didn’t, you know, put a kibosh on the Spaniards earlier. And, you know, he had a zoo, he had an animal house, he had a botanic garden, he amassed this world of texts and books and talent and artisans. And at the same time, you know, with a lift of an eyebrow, he could have pulled together an army of warriors to stomp out and to destroy people. I mean, he was intense. And then dealing with Cortés, it’s like, no one was prepared for a people who had no boundaries, you know? And just, like, moved through— I mean, Montezuma was considered like a man-god, and there are reports that they thought that maybe the, you know, the Spaniards, that Cortés was like the second coming of, of Quetzalcoatl, which is also kind of ridiculous. I think after the conquest, people were, like, looking for a reason, like, “Why did this happen to us?” And it’s like, you know, the reason, one reason, you know, that Cortés was the, the second coming of the, of this god figure that Montezuma was hesitant to harm him. And it’s like, I don’t think that was it.
Ann: In your book, that’s where I love— Because that’s sort of, it’s still sort of a widespread myth that the people there thought that Cortés was a god. But then I love in your book, you’re like, “Mmm, but what if people thought that Malinalli was the goddess?” I love that in your book, you inverted that kind of expectation. I just wanted to say, sorry.
Veronica: Yeah! And, and she’s working and he’s working for her, possibly. Yeah. I thought like, I had this opportunity and this myth and so, I leaned into that, and you know, the character starts to believe it, which is a problem and doesn’t work out. Yeah, no, I just thought like, “What if? What if?”
My dad was a journalist and, you know, one thing, one thing he would tell us over and over again is to ask questions, ask questions. So, from the get-go, I had questions and you know, when I would uncover some bit of research or see something that really sparked my imagination, I’d be like, “What if?” Just, you know, off and running to build on that. But again, it’s like, much of this is grounded in the history. That grounding also gave me a sense of freedom to kind of, like, to really reach and to lean into certain themes and to lean into the magic realism and, you know, fantasy in a different way and cross boundaries in my writing, you know? Because I was like, ”Can I do this?” And unless someone told me no… [laughs] “You can’t do that. You can’t do that in this book.” Or it’s like, “That doesn’t make any sense.” It’s like, no, everyone was just like, “More!”
Ann: I was just looking at more information about your editor and about this press. And it just seems like such a perfect marriage of like, again, just like, strong women supporting each other, but also what I’m reading about, about this press, like the whole, it’s launching, I think your book is one of the first titles coming out from this imprint, Primero Sueño Press and it’s about Malinalli! And that’s just so perfect because this… I’ll just read for people so they know.
Primero Sueño Press will serve English and Spanish speakers seeking identity, culture, inspiration, entertainment, wellness, and personal development. The imprint will publish fiction, nonfiction with universal appeal that honours and plays with genre.
And I mean, that’s just what you’re saying. The way that your book plays with genre, it’s so much within the context, like it fits within that magical realism that you see in so much, like, Latina storytelling and in books. So, you have magic, but it ties back to the culture that you were researching so I love that they were just pushing you to put more of that in because it just seems like that’s exactly what this imprint is about. And it’s, so your book found exactly the right home, clearly.
Veronica: Yeah, no, I worked with my team, predominantly women, and they were my cheerleaders between, you know, my agent, my editor and assistant editors. They were just marvelous. And at no point did I feel that I couldn’t express myself the way I wanted, you know, I felt safe. I felt safe with them. I felt that this was a perfect home for Malinalli. The sensibility, the sensitivity, and the hunger to know more, to go ahead, you know, it’s like I have sentences with, with names like Huitzilopochtli and, and Quetzalcoatl, and you know, I have touches, I use words in Nahuatl. And there was, “Yes! More!” and I never… It was… It was… [sighs] It’s been an amazing experience for me to be embraced like that and to be valued like that [through tears] and to have somebody working with me to make, you know, these words sing and to make it come, come to life. You know, watching my grammar back because, you know, I don’t know about you, but sometimes I get a little comma happy. [Ann laughs] But yeah, no, it was my tribe. I found my tribe and it’s been extraordinary. So, yeah.
Ann: Well, and just as sort of a final question. I’ve been curious ever since I first encountered your book: How did you choose what name to call her? Given there’s La Malinche, there’s Malintzin, there’s Malinalli. Like, how did you decide which..? And in the book often, they call her Mali. How did you decide which name to use?
Veronica: Malinalli is her day sign name. Historians, researchers… It’s controversial as to what name was she born with. Does it matter? Yes, it matters. I mean, it matters to me that, you know, my mom said, you know, from the get-go says, “You were going to be Veronica.” So, it’s like Malinalli was her day sign name and I just thought, it’s like the closest to, to her, her Nahua origins. It’s an ancient word, it’s an ancient name and it’s steeped in, you know, being a member of this land of what is now Mexico and this language and this culture. All of the other names… Malintzin was given, you know, was based on, you know, taking part of her name and, and, you know, adding the T-Z-I-N, which denoted, you know, someone of nobility and denoted prestige. And out of that Malintzin, the Spaniards heard Malinche. They didn’t hear it correctly, and it’s like, and that’s removed, for me, from who she is. Doña Marina? Forget about it.
Ann: No. No.
Veronica: That’s the Spaniards. And Malinche, because Malinche is such, for me, is…
Ann: You said it felt like a slap when you heard it.
Veronica: Yeah! The first time I heard it, it was… It sounded, it was uttered with contempt and to be called, like, a Malinchista, which is still being used. You know, that means ‘traitor,’ and it has a lot of other meanings. There’s a lot of other meanings in there. And I’m like, “Nope.”
It took us a while because it was a, it was a group effort to be that bold and forthright for that to be the name of the book. Over the years, I had had all of these, “The Woman in the Obsidian Mirror,” I mean, mirrors play an important part throughout the story and, you know, mirrored images and you know, obsidian mirrors were used to see into the future and all of this, and all kinds of like, you know, kind of old school romantic sounding names and titles and all this stuff. And it was just like, coming around to, it was like its own journey and, and presenting, nope, this is her story through her eyes, what she’s feeling, it’s her. And like I said, there’s such power. God, just when I saw the book cover, just seeing, you know, I was just like, “Oh my!” There’s so much power.
Ann: I just wanted to say that, like, I felt that power when I was just scrolling through a list of like upcoming books and I saw a book called Malinalli and that caught— If I had seen like “The Woman in the Obsidian Mirror,” I might have scrolled past that, but it said “Malinalli” and I was like, “Wait a minute, could this book be about this woman?” And it was! It called out to me. So, it’s a great title, I think.
Veronica: Yeah, that was a team effort to get there [laughs] because, you know… Yeah, I was like so inside the story that it took like, you know, the voice from over here to say, “Let’s bring it back.” And I’m like, “Perfect.”
But it’s like, I’m so, god, I’m so thrilled that here we are, the first day of Women’s History Month, to be talking about her. And, you know, I was thinking about how the stars have lined up in good ways and in kind of scary ways because it’s like right now we’re living in a time period where women are… God, at the beginning of the year, it seemed like every day, it’s like someone in the modern world, a woman was being vilified and scapegoated for something that went wrong and it made me think of her, Malinalli. And it’s like, I mean, men will always do this, right? If there’s, you know, it comes to authority figures, women with voices, women with power, strong women who are out there communicating to the world. When something goes amiss, you know, that has nothing to do with it, it’s outside the control of women, it’s still our fault.
It happens over and over again, you know, and thinking about the systems, you know, the patriarchy and the machismo system and how Malinalli has been, you know, used as an emotional, I’m going to say football, you know, American football, and just depending on which way the political winds were blowing and what the mood was, you know, we need a figure that we could just project all of our hate onto, you know, hate that this conquest occurred, hate that things aren’t going well, whatever. Because, you know, there has been no story, there is no story of her, she left us nothing. So, it’s like, people feel like we can do whatever we want with her. So, by kind of, like, putting a story out there, and I am not the first person to look at her, to consider her and frame her in a different way. Women have been looking, Chicanas, Mexican American women have been looking at her story, you know, since the seventies.
I remember, I was looking, going through my library of books. I have a book, The Goddess of the Americas, which was edited by Ana Castillo, and it’s basically writings on the Virgin of Guadalupe, but throughout the book, there are essays and poetry which look at the Indigenous, the Mesoamerican pantheon and, you know, talking about the goddesses and the ancient indigenous version of the Virgin of Guadalupe, which is Tonantzin, you know, the Earth goddess. Now I’ve lost my point. [laughs] Anyway…
Ann: Well, just sort of the legacy of her story and how it… What I am picking up right now is just sort of how women in so much of history and so many places can be the scapegoat but then also you see these lineages, like you were saying, like the Virgin of Guadalupe and women who are revered and respected and it’s kind of, like, two sides of just kind of these legacies. And neither of them is looking at this person as a human being, it’s all just like, what can she represent and to who? And it’s kind of positive in one side and it’s negative in one side.
But for me, like, for Women’s History Month, which I love that this is when your book, when we’re having this conversation when your book is coming out as well, is just looking at these were people. These were not mythical, magical goddesses. I mean, in your book, kind of, but it’s like, these were human beings with good sides and bad sides and they were just people and we want to celebrate them, but we also don’t want to put them on such a high pedestal that it’s kind of meaningless.
Veronica: Yeah. Yeah. Like I said earlier, it’s a woman in full. And I’m hoping, you know, presenting a human being who was presented with one tragedy, trauma after another and is able to pull herself forward. I think it might be difficult for some people. It’s like, “Oh my god, all this stuff happens over and over again.” It’s hard, but you know, the lives of women, it is hard.
Ann: I do think that, for me, doing this podcast, which just kind of keeps me always in this women’s history mode, when things are getting overwhelming or scary and intense like they are lately, I do find when I look back at the stories of people like Malinalli who lived through these seemingly impossible circumstances and kept going. And you know, whether it’s a story of somebody who is, you know, a queen or somebody who is a worker, or somebody like her, who was just trying to find her place in the world. Like, to me, to see women who just keep going, even in the face of what seems like insurmountable odds helps me to keep going. So, I think in that way, your book is also very timely and almost reassuring, you know, to see, like, she went through all of this so I can go through what I’m going through, you know?
Veronica: Right. Yeah. She’s able to navigate a way forward. And again, it’s tapping into, like, an ancestry, tapping into spiritually, you know, what she’s learned, how she’s been raised and to keep moving forward. The ending was where it’s like, you know, I’ve moved forward and I’m preparing for the next Malinalli, the next person to come forward, to take over and to carry us the rest of the way and that’s what we do for each other. We make way, and help, and provide a way and provide the resources and provide the words and the encouragement and the support to make way, to create a path forward for the next generation of women to protect themselves, you know, prepare them to protect each other. You know, how do we fight? How do we fight back? Through our voices. Just remember, each one of us has a voice that we can use and some of us are gifted with the command of languages to drive, you know, to communicate and drive home our points even more thoroughly. And that’s a beautiful and that’s a rich thing. And the more we know about each other, the stronger we become as a community and as a people. Yeah, hope. Hope is a big theme of the book and there’s always hope. There is hope, period.
Ann: I think that’s a beautiful, that’s a beautiful point to end our conversation on. And I think, I mean, thank you for writing this book. It just seems, like, blessed that it found just, like you said, just the right group of people to really elevate it and to push you in these directions, to expand on, kind of, these different aspects of it that make it such a special and interesting and unique book. I hope as you’re going out and promoting it this month, that you just get so much love and affection back for it. This book clearly means so much to you. And I think that’s going to resonate with so many people when they read it.
Veronica: Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to me. I’m such a nerd when it comes to some of this. And like you said, I have to learn how not to have my heart on my sleeve, you know, when I’m talking about her. [laughs]
Ann: I think, honestly, the fact that you so have your heart on your sleeve talking about her, I think that’s so affecting and I think that’s going to really make a lot of people want to read your book even more.
Veronica: Thank you. This has been a thrill and an absolute delight. So, thank you very much for listening to me.
Ann: Thank you so much for joining me.
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So, I mean, if that interview doesn’t get you wanting to read this book, I don’t know what would. It’s such a good book. Malinalli by Veronica Chapa, available wherever you get your books if you’re in North America, or from your favourite independent bookstore, get it from your local library, tell your library to get it. Just like, it’s such an important book, it’s such a good book. And I mean, Malinalli could not possibly have a more passionate advocate sharing her story out there in the world than Veronica. I really appreciate that she took the time to talk to me about her book.
So yeah, Vulgar History is a podcast you’re listening to. It’s Women’s History Month and all month we’re going to be talking about women from history. We do that every month, but you know, with a special Women’s History Month lens. Anyway, I also am an author to be. My book Rebel of the Regency: The Scandalous Saga of Caroline of Brunswick, Britain’s Uncrowned Queen is going to be coming out next year and there’s nonstop updates about what’s happening with the book. You know, like, I’m editing the book, I’m getting headshots taken, I’m just… various things, I’m getting permission from Buckingham Palace for pictures in the book. There’s lots to keep up with. If you want to know the latest news about me and my book, like when is it going to go on preorder? When can you order a copy of it? The best and easy one-stop shopping way to get those updates from me and also podcast updates and other things is to join my brand-new, newish mailing list, which is once a month, I’ll just send you kind of the highlights of like, what’s going on? What’s the latest book news? What’s the latest podcast news? I put in some book and movie recommendations as well. And you can sign up for that newsletter by going to VulgarHistory.com/News.
And if you’re like, I listened to this podcast, I like Ann’s talking voice. I have been told I sound like a white female Barack Obama, which was a compliment that I take to heart. But if you want to know what my writing is like, because you know, I’m writing a book also, I have a Substack newsletter where we write about women from history. And that is at VulgarHistory.Substack.com. I post there a free article every two weeks.
And also… Actually, I want to say, no, I’ll say this first. So, you can support this podcast by joining my Patreon. If you go to Patreon.com/AnnFosterWriter, you can join for free. I post lots of shit there. I post interesting links, more book and movie recommendations. You can join the Patreon for free. And that’s where I’m just trying to divest from being so dependent on various social media channels, because then you’re kind of at the whims of these, like, asshole social media company owners, and their fucked up algorithms. And it’s like, I just want to share my shit with the people who care about it, and I found that Patreon is a place where you can do that. So, you can join my Patreon for absolute free. Go to Patreon.com/AnnFosterWriter, and you will see the free stuff that I post there, which is just kind of like conversation stuff and links and interesting articles and stuff that previously I might have posted on Instagram or somewhere. But then also, I’ve been posting free podcasts there, which are book-writing updates. So, you can get those there all at the free tier.
Also at the free tier, recently, I posted an episode there, a new Patreon spin-off podcast. I don’t know how many of these I’m going to do, but it’s called Vulgar Words: Boycott. And I explained the etymology, why we call it a boycott when people are encouraged to stop purchasing things from a certain place. It’s because there was this shitty English landlord whose name was Charles Boycott and he was being shitty to people in Ireland where he owned some farms so they decided to just stop fucking with him. They just decided to stop working for him; they decided if he went to a store, they wouldn’t sell him anything. They invented the concept of a boycott and then he left Ireland because they were so successful. Irish people, whenever they show up in any story, just legends, truly. So, I did an episode there, and you can join. Free members of my Patreon can hear Vulgar Words: Boycott. That’s one of the things that you can get access to if you join there.
And then if you also feel so inclined, and I never want to pressure anybody, especially in this economy, but if you pledge $1 a month, you can also get free early access, ad-free access to all episodes of Vulgar History, you get that through the Patreon as well. And then if you are so inclined, and if you can afford it in this economy for $5 a month, like, if you pledge $5 a month to me on Patreon, you get access to bonus episodes on there as well, including episodes of So This Asshole, where I talk about shitty men from history, including Hernán Cortés. And also, if you join the Patreon for $5 a month or more, you get to join our very elite salon, our Discord channel, which is where we chat about various things, emotionally support one another, share pictures of our pets. It’s a group chat. So anyway, Patreon. Patreon.com/AnnFosterWriter. Join it for free, join it for $1 a month, join it for $5 a month, whatever you want to do.
Also, I do want to mention our brand partner, Common Era Jewelry. We’ve been working with them. And by working with them, I mean, like, talking with them on my podcast for a while. And it’s really exciting to see when new collections drop, and they just drop to new collections. So, just to remind you, Common Era Jewelry is a women-owned small business that makes beautiful heirloom jewelry inspired by women from history and also by classical history in general from mythology and things like that. I’ve talked before about their gorgeous designs inspired by women from history and myth and I’m excited to let you know that based on popular demand, they now have a new collection of Zodiac jewelry. Torie, who is the owner of Common Era Jewelry, when she was talking about this new collection, she was saying like, so many people do Zodiac jewelry, she didn’t want to just like do this, like her version of the same sorts of things, and then she found this obscure 17th-century alchemical manuscript. This is why you know Torie and I work together on this because I would also be excited to find an obscure 17th-century alchemical manuscript. So, this new Zodiac collection from Common Era
… reimagines Zodiac jewelry through the lens of ancient alchemical wisdom. Each pendant features an ancient sigil crafted under precise astrological conditions once believed to hold protective and transformative powers. More than adornment, these pieces are modern talismans—symbols of connection, intention, and the timeless magic of the stars.
So, these and other pieces are available in solid gold, as well as a more affordable gold vermeil. Although, I will mention that the Zodiac collection, the gold vermeil is a bit delayed. So, if you go there, you just, you can sign up to be, like, on the waiting list for the gold vermeil versions of those if that’s what you’re interested in. Whatever you get from Common Era, Vulgar History listeners can always get 15% off all items by going to CommonEra.com/Vulgar or using code ‘VULGAR’ at checkout.
If you want to get Vulgar History merchandise, that is available at the newly revamped Vulgar History merchandise store. You know how it used to be, if you looked at it before, you log onto the site and it’s kind of like, here’s a T-shirt, here’s a pin, here’s a mug, and all of different designs. And you have to click on the T-shirt and then scroll down to see what other products you can get that design on. And it was kind of confusing. It looks a little bit more straightforward now. You just log in there, it’s straight up. It’s just, here’s the pictures of the designs, which are all designs that are done by artists who I’ve hired and paid appropriate amounts of money to, no AI-generated nonsense in our merch store. Anyway, so go to VulgarHistory.com/Store if you’re in the US and you want some merchandise from a Canadian person. If you’re outside the US, the shipping is a bit better if you go to VulgarHistory.Redbubble.com.
You can also get in touch with me using the form at VulgarHistory.com. It says like, “Contact me” or something like that. You can also email me if you want VulgarHistoryPod@gmail.com. I’m on various social media, just look for @VulgarHistoryPod and there I will be, chances are.
Next week’s episode is another new episode and I’m going to be talking to an author and it’s a really exciting author interview. Again, it’s an author whose name I’ve said on the podcast before because I have used several of her books to research previous episodes and now she has a new book talking about an old fave and a new fave. Anyway, next week it’s going to be good. Yeah, America, like, what I can do for you is provide you a podcast every week, distract you from the horrors, and that is what I will continue doing. It’s Women’s History Month, let’s fuck shit up. Keep your pants on and your tits out.
Vulgar History is hosted, written, and researched by Ann Foster, that’s me! The editor is Cristina Lumague. Theme music is by the Severn Duo. The Vulgar History show image is by Deborah Wong. Transcripts are written by Aveline Malek. Find transcripts of recent episodes at VulgarHistory.com.
References:
Buy a copy of Malinalli by Veronica Chapa.
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Sign up for the Vulgar History mailing list!
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Get 15% off all the gorgeous jewellery and accessories at common.era.com/vulgar or go to commonera.com and use code VULGAR at checkout
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Get Vulgar History merch at vulgarhistory.com/store (best for US shipping) and vulgarhistory.redbubble.com (better for international shipping)
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Support Vulgar History on Patreon
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Vulgar History is an affiliate of Bookshop.org, which means that a small percentage of any books you click through and purchase will come back to Vulgar History as a commission. Use this link to shop there and support Vulgar History.
