Joslyn Fox isn't just another small-town girl who's found herself awash in the glamour and competitiveness of reality television. She's a glamazon warrior on "RuPaul's Drag Race," and after nearly being eliminated in Monday's episode, she discovered she still had some fight in her.

"I was so disappointed," says Fox, when asked about finding herself in the dreaded bottom two, having to "lip-synch for your life" to convince drag queen legend RuPaul to keep her in the competition and send home her fellow competitor, Laganja Estranja. "But I wasn't worried that I was going to go home. It was game on."

The 27-year-old Fox, also known as Patrick Allen Joslyn of Worcester, found herself in the perilous predicament when, after several weeks of challenges that tested her acting, dancing and singing ability, she faltered in a stand-up comedy routine.

"When your perform at a club," Fox explains, "you perform a number. You don't get that opportunity on the show until you lip-synch for your life."

But the show is different, she says — "it's about bringing everything else you have to offer. The competition is about showcasing how multifaceted you are as a drag queen. My strong suit is performing. I had to pull some tricks out of my sleeve, and even surprise myself to see what I was capable of."

Although the season has already been recorded, Fox was unable to divulge any details of upcoming episodes. But she assures us that Monday's episode was a turning point for her, both from surviving the lip-synch challenge and a confrontation with fellow competitor Courtney Act, an Australian drag queen who had been a finalist on the televised singing competition "Australian Idol."

And Fox, as it turns out, was a big fan.

"In the beginning, I kind of got self-defeated," says Fox. "I thought, 'Well, Courtney's here, and I'm not really on her level. If she's here, maybe I don't deserve to be here.' "

But Fox says she found that that defeatism burned away by dealing with what she perceived to be patronizing behavior from Act.

"I took from that that I didn't have to validate myself or my ability," says Fox, adding that "it broke my heart, but it snapped me back into reality."

Fox says that she and Act squashed the conflict right away, although some tension remained afterward.

"Before that, I was a fan girl," says Fox. "I love Courtney Act, but after that, I saw a whole other side of her. In some respects, I saw the vulnerability in Courtney, the humanity, and that sort of strengthened the bond."

It's not terribly shocking to find that conflict stirred Fox into fighting for her place on the show: She's fought tenaciously to get there, auditioning for seasons three through five, before finally getting accepted for the current season, six.

She says the audition process for each season has been slightly different, and often included sending video tapes of her performing, and a tour of her closet. The process of auditioning usually took up about a month of her time every season.

"This year it was my fourth year, and it became second nature. It was a learning experience for me every year. I asked myself 'Who made it on the show? What were they offering that I wasn't?' This time I was more honest about who I was. I wasn't trying to give them what they wanted. I guess it worked."

She says that, even though there's not much of an active drag scene in Worcester at the moment, she feels "a lot of pressure and responsibility to represent Worcester, but I'm ready to do that."

But one thing that hasn't happened yet is that she hasn't been recognized on the Wormtown streets.

"No one has asked me, 'Are you Joslyn Fox,' " she says, adding, "I'm going to take a lot of pictures with the first person who asks me that."



"RuPaul's Drag Race" airs at 10 p.m. Mondays on Logo. (Victor D. Infante)