Ann Foster is a writer living in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Her research interest is in the intersection of women, history, and pop culture, especially the lives and stories of figures both well-known and half-forgotten. Ann has appeared as a historical expert on BBC radio, and her writing has been published on Longreads, Shondaland, in Bitch Magazine, and elsewhere. Ann has hosted the Vulgar History podcast since 2019.

Take it away, Ann!

 What inspired you to start the Vulgar History podcast? What type of stories do you discuss?

I started my podcast, Vulgar History, because I wanted an outlet to share the fascinating stories I’d been reading about in my spare time with an audience who would be interested in hearing them (my real-life friends and family, while supportive, weren’t prepared to hear me monologue for 3 hours every week on my latest obsession). Before I started the podcast, I had been researching some women from Tudor history, which turned into my blogging about them. And as a fan of podcasts myself, I thought there was space for my take on these stories in that format as well.

With both my podcast and my writing, I’ve always felt that anyone can read up on these people on Wikipedia or in a biography. What I bring to it is my point of view, as well as my best attempts to explain it all to people without previous knowledge of the subject matter. I’m able to do this because most of the time, I also don’t know these stories! So the questions I have are the questions I presume others might have, and so I always work very hard to hold listeners’/readers’ hands through my retellings. You need to understand the history of ancient Egypt, the Ptolomy Dynasty, ancient Rome, and Julius Caesar, for instance, to really understand who Cleopatra was and why she matters. So I try my best to really set every story in a place and time so that we can all enjoy the shenanigans together.

I started just talking about British history, because that was my interest at the time I started the show. As more listeners came on board from many different cultures, I wanted to learn about them and share these stories as well. Most of the stories I tell are still from Western countries, because I can only read English sources and those are the ones most available to me. Within that, my guiding principles are: is this a good story with twists and turns? Can I really dig into this story and make it exciting? Am I dying to share this with someone? And when the answers are all yes, I know I’ve found a topic worth covering!

Rumor has it that you have a book in the pipeline.  Can you tell us what it’s about and when to expect it?

Yes! My first nonfiction book is scheduled to come out in about one year, at the beginning of 2026. It’s called (tentatively) Rebel of the Regency: The Scandalous Saga of Caroline of Brunswick, Britain’s Uncrowned Queen.

I want to be very clear that my book, like my podcast, is funny! And doesn’t require anyone to come in with any pre-existing knowledge of British history. I explain everything in plain language, with a lot of jokes along the way.

Caroline of Brunswick was the subject of the very first Vulgar History episode, which is still my most-listened to. I fell in love with her story when I first encountered it five or six years ago, and it’s always really stuck with me. I knew I wanted my first book to be about someone I’m passionate about, and she was the best choice. Part of what’s fascinating about her is that she lived during the Regency Era, which is a very well-known time period from books, TV shows, and movies. In fact, she was married to The Regent himself, George, Prince of Wales! But neither of them tend to show up in these Regency-era books or films, which is telling. We like to think of that time as one with strict etiquette and very well-behaved people, but Caroline and George don’t fit into that schema at all. She was known for being outrageous and intentionally shocking people with her jokes and behaviour, while George notoriously was a womanizing gambler who wasted his money on home renovations and drink.

In researching the book, I also learned more about the absolute chaos happening in England during this time period. There were near-constant riots that veered toward full-on revolution (this was just after the French Revolution, which had all the monarchies in Europe terrified they’d also be overthrown by a mob). Caroline, like Princess Diana, was at odds with the monarchy and was beloved by the everyday people. She became a sort of figurehead of the revolution, inspiring women from lower and middle classes to step up as activists in a way they hadn’t before. I talk about this in the book, but in some ways, Caroline paved the way for the later suffragette movement as her supporters all wore white.

Do you think Women’s History Month is important and why? 

I think Women’s History Month is important similarly to how other commemorative dates like Black History Month, Pride Month, and Holocaust Memorial Day are important. On my podcast and in my life, I do my best to honour all kinds of history every day. But I know that most school curriculums and most popular history podcasts and TV shows highlight the history of the same wealthy cis white men and stories from history. To break through so that people know that history is so much more than the 50 white men who wind up on lists of “greatest historical figures of all time” lists means I’m always beating a drum and yelling about people like Caroline of Brunswick.

So while I’m celebrating all these histories all the time, Women’s History Month is a time when a more-than-usual amount of people seek out these stories and pay attention. And hopefully some people will get excited about these stories, and maybe start thinking about what other people haven’t we been celebrating. I live in Canada, which is similar to the USA and the UK in that a lot of peoples’ concept of history comes from historical movies. And many of those movies were made in the mid-20th century, and therefore feature a lot of white men doing “great” things, with no people of colour shown in the background. This has led generations to assume that these monumental events occurred in times when there were only white people around, when actually it’s just that the films were made during a racist era by racist people. So when we see people now correcting that by putting people of colour in historical settings, or by showing women in powerful leadership roles, there are accusations that this is misleading when it’s actually being more reflective of actual history.

All of which to say: Women’s History Month is very important, and it’s better for people to celebrate this one month a year than never. But in my life, it’s Women’s History Month 24/7.

A question from Ann: What is the most interesting thing you’ve learned by interviewing people this year on this topic?

I always learn a lot working on this series. Stories about women I’d never heard of.  Books I want to read.  Ways of thinking about the work of doing women’s history, (I call everyone’s attention to Jennifer Tuttle’s very smart discussion of doing research beyond the obvious places, which will run on tomorrow.) But this year I find myself thinking a lot about Lydia Moland’s discussion of her decision to find an American woman who had faced a moral emergency in the past, her discovery of Lydia Maria Child, and Child’s conscious choice to devote her talents to abolition.

Moland included what seemed to me to be a challenge to find the philosophical core that will support you (and by you I mean all of us) in fighting against systematic evil. I am not a philosophical thinker by nature, as you may have realized in my answers to big questions in previous posts. I tend to find my answers through story-telling. But I think Moland’s call to think about the big questions is an important one.

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Want to learn more about Ann and her work?

Visit her website 

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Follow her on Bluesky: @vulgarhistory.bsky.social

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Come back tomorrow for three questions and an answer with historian and archivist Jennifer Tuttle.