Ashley Sweeney discusses writing about underserved women with Pam on Authors on the Air

Authors on the Air host Pam Stack welcomes author Ashley E Sweeney to the studio.  Ashley has this to say about herself and her writing: "I’ve been long enamored with underserved women’s voices. My technique to hitch a heroine to history dovetails with a fact that (unfortunately) didn’t surprise me: women’s stories make up only a fraction of narratives set in the American West. There are as many tales waiting to be told as the day is long on a warm July day in New Mexico or Wyoming or Montana or anywhere under the wide western skies. My newest novel, Answer Creek, introduces a stoic and hardy protagonist who braves the rigors of the Oregon-California Trail as a member of the ill-fated Donner Party. In Answer Creek, I tackle deep—and even taboo—topics: starvation, madness, murder, and yes, cannibalism. Although Ada Weeks is a fictional character, she, and many other young women like her, traveled the Oregon-California Trail in the 1840s and 1850s. Their struggles were more similar than different, including that most of them were bound largely by the decisions of others (namely men—husbands, fathers, brothers, uncles), rather than their own. As a product of the 20th century, I find our foremothers’ challenges daunting and constraining.  I wouldn’t have made an ideal pioneer woman (I’m too opinionated and outspoken, and, frankly, not that tough). So I infuse Ada Weeks with qualities I admire and urge her to speak up against injustice and misogyny and foolhardiness. Does it change the outcome? Perhaps not. But it changes her." @coyrighted.  Listen on your favorite podcast app. COMMENTS

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