Ep #5: Telling sensitive stories with compassion - with writer Rachel Catherine Allen

Podcast

Oct 10

You're in for an absolute treat with this episode! I had the utter joy of chatting with the phenomenal Rachel Allen - a writer, journalist, and memoirist who's as sharp as a tack and twice as insightful.

Rachel and I dove headfirst into the glorious mess of creative writing, particularly when it comes to tackling sensitive subjects. We talked about everything from how she approaches writing about trauma (including her own) to the importance of treating every single person with compassion and humanity - even those society might deem 'unworthy'.

I was utterly gobsmacked by Rachel's ability to find the humanity in everyone she encounters. She has this incredible knack for excavating stories from the most unexpected places - from prison guards to taxi drivers.

We also chewed over the challenges of balancing honesty and authenticity in storytelling with respecting the privacy and feelings of those involved. And of course, we couldn't help but touch on the importance of self-care when dealing with heavy subjects.

If you're fascinated by the human condition and love a good, juicy story (who doesn't?), then pop the kettle on and settle in for a listen. I promise you'll come away feeling inspired, uplifted, and maybe even a tad more compassionate towards your fellow humans.

You can watch the video version here:

Or listen to the audio version here (click the arrow at the bottom right to play):

Find out more about Rachel:

Rachel Allen is an Appalachian writer, journalist, and memoirist. Raised in the mountains outside of Asheville, NC, she cut her teeth in professional writing via investigative journalism, then fell backwards into a marketing career that took her all over the world and resulted in her writing for some of the biggest (and smallest) names on the internet. During this time she also ghostwrote and edited over a dozen books, as well as writing her first book under her own name, Use Your Words. She now writes essays, investigative podcasts, and nonfiction, including her upcoming memoir, Batshit.

Eli: Hello and welcome to Zuzu's Haus of Cats Presents. I'm Eli Trier, your host, and on this podcast, I love to talk to my fellow artists and creative people about the work that they make. We dive deep into the creative process and cover everything from why they make what they make, to how they actually get everything done, and everything in between.
In this episode, Zuzu's Haus of Cats is delighted to present the amazing Rachel Allen. Rachel is an Appalachian writer, journalist and memoirist, raised in the mountains outside Asheville. She cut her teeth in professional writing via investigative journalism, then fell backwards into a marketing career that took her all over the world and resulted in her writing for some of the biggest and smallest names on the internet. During this time, she also ghostwrote and edited over a dozen books, as well as writing her first book under her own name, "Use Your Words". She now writes essays, investigative podcasts and nonfiction, including her upcoming memoir, "Batshit".
In our conversation today, we talk about how Rachel approaches sensitive subjects in her writing, including deep diving into her own trauma for her upcoming memoir. I am endlessly impressed by her ability to meet every single person on her journey with the same compassion, respect and humanity. Now let's meet Rachel.
Eli: Hi everybody. Welcome back to Zuzu's Haus of Cats Presents, and today, the Haus of Cats is proud to present Rachel Allen, who is one of the cleverest, most insightful human beings I think I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. She is joining us today in her role as a writer of all sorts of things - essays, memoir, exposé - really, really interesting, intelligent stuff, and I can't wait to dig into it. So Rachel, my love, would you like to introduce yourself and sort of tell us a little bit about how you ended up where you are?
Rachel: Thank you. That was a lovely introduction. I'm so happy to be here. I've been a writer since forever. It's just kind of the way I moved through the world, and the way I ended up here was via a phase in which I ran a marketing agency for 16 years. That was something I fell completely backwards into. I was always like, "Oh no, I'm going to be a journalist. I want to write books." And then life happens, and a series of things led me to being in Hong Kong at 22 with no work visa of my own doing, but I had to find a job.
So I was Googling how to make money online, because it's 2008 and that's what you did. And I saw this thing called copywriting pop up, and I was like, I don't know what that is, but I bet I could do it. And it turns out that I can. So I made a business out of it, had loads of fun, learned a lot about writing, and then I think you've probably experienced this as well. You get to a phase in a business where you're like, you know what? I know how to win this game, and it's not as interesting to me as it was before.
Eli: Exactly.
Rachel: So I tried to fight it for a couple years, and I was like, "Oh, but I couldn't possibly do journalism, write books," until earlier this year. I actually was like, "You know what? I'm going to be really mad if I get to the end of my life, and I haven't actually done this." So I had started secretly doing it a couple of years before, and now I'm publishing it and having everyone come along with me for the writing process, which feels just so strange, but really great.
Eli: I think it's amazing. And I think "Batshit" the book that we're going to talk about a little bit later. I think I can see it being a New York Times bestseller. Like, easily. If it doesn't happen, I'm going to eat my hat. I think it's a foregone conclusion.
Rachel: Thank you. I'm really excited about it.
Eli: So you've still got sort of like half a foot in the marketing business, and you're moving more towards the writing for yourself and doing all of these amazing projects. So what is your sort of typical day, typical week? How does that shake out for you?
Rachel: I love this question, because I really wish I had a typical day or week right now. I'm doing a lot of traveling back and forth. I'm in Texas right now doing interviews, actually for the second half of the podcast that I'm working on as well. And right now, a typical day looks like me living in an Airbnb in Texas. A visitor called it a hillbilly compound, which I think is fair, but I hold that in a very loving sense of the word that is my history and my roots.
There's a little pond right outside an outdoor office. So I'll get up in the mornings and I'll have my decaf coffee because I can't do caffeine anymore because I'm ancient. And then go outside to the lovely office and light up all my citronella candles. I have been doing a lot of longhand writing in the morning. So I'll sit and I'll write in this notebook that I've been working in. And in the afternoons, I'll do the other stuff - if there's something I need to do for the marketing business, if I'm doing interviews, if I'm doing any other stuff that's not strictly in my own head creative work.
In the evenings, I've been kind of letting adventure take me. I ended up, strangely, running the merch table at a local roller derby bout the other day, and I was like, "Oh, cool." I had never been to one, and now I really want to do roller derby.
Eli: I think it has that effect on people. I know lots of people who are like, "Oh, I just kind of stumbled into this thing, and now it's my life."
Rachel: Exactly. It looks fantastic.
Eli: Super cool. So do you find you're sort of most creative first thing in the morning? Is that when your best kind of creative juice happens?
Rachel: I take about an hour to come to terms with the fact that I'm awake. So not directly in the morning, but after that, when I've come into my human self again, then it's usually before I've looked at any email, I don't go on social media, I don't talk to anybody. I'm just like, "No, okay, this is the one thing that I'm doing." So I think it's more about having a clean slate than morningness. But yeah, I do get most of the work that I'm most interested in done in the morning.
Eli: I love that before the world kind of rushes in and starts demanding things. I'm the same. I need, like, eight to 12 hours of alone time before I get started on the day.
Rachel: That's very much so.
Eli: So you mentioned that you're going out to the pond, and you're sort of lighting these citronella candles and things like that. Do you have any kind of specific rituals or workflows or things that kind of help switch you on? Okay, now we're gonna be creative now. We're gonna be doing this thing.
Rachel: Sometimes I will get those wonderful flashes of like, "Oh, this is what we're doing right now." And it just kind of happens, and I love that. But when I need to sort of grease the wheels a little bit, then I have a specific way that I open documents on my computer. I actually made a shortcut for myself, so I know that when I hit the command and right arrow key, it pops up a Word document formatted exactly how I want it. And so that kind of gets me going with it.
Eli: That's sexy. I love that.
Rachel: Yeah.
Eli: I love that special way of like setting the stage, and then you're in it and you're ready. And do you find that it impacts your work? Do you feel like it does the thing in your brain to kind of get you ready? Or do you think it's affectation?
Rachel: Maybe both. But I think it does. I think it helps, especially if I'm finding that I'm coming up against a blank wall, if I'm not really quite sure how to get going. Because normally, I'll come to a project and the way things always start for me is I have a sentence drop into my head and I'm like, "Oh, okay, that's the door. I'm gonna go in through there." But if I don't have that and I still need to do some work, then I'll open the document and I'll just keyboard smash until I get to a sentence like anything, even if it's just like, I'll be like, "Intro, intro, intro, something boring here, pithy headline," oh, okay, and then I'll get into it.
Eli: I love that. Do you find that you do a lot of your writing when you're actually not at the keyboard at all, when you're off, kind of driving, or in the shower or whatever?
Rachel: Yeah, absolutely. So many of these things, I think so much of this process just comes to you when you're not thinking about it. And that's why I have such a belief that writing wants to come into the world, and that's why it sort of happens in your brain without you thinking about it. And of course, that's a hard realization to come to, right? Because I'm like, "Well, no, I want to be in control of this process." And what I've learned is like, "Oh, that's such a cute concept," but it's just not true.
Eli: I know exactly what you mean. It's the same thing with painting as well. Like, it's just, it's gonna happen. It's kind of, it's going to come through you, and there's not much you can do to control it, like it's just whatever wants to be born through you is going to be born through you. And that's just it.
Rachel: Exactly. I never in a million years thought that I would have been doing a podcast of all things.
Eli: So let's talk about the podcast. Because one of the things that fascinates me about your work is that there are so many different threads. You say the thread that runs through all of it is these kind of untold stories, but you approach that from so many different and interesting angles. The podcast is about the prison system, correct? It's "Beyond Broken". Is that right? And then you have your memoir called "Batshit", which is about your escape from Christian nationalism. And then you have the new project, "Feral Wife", which is about becoming accidentally the wife of someone who gets sent to prison. They're all such different stories. How do you figure out what it is that you want to talk about and which ideas are worth pursuing, and which ones are ideas that get kind of put on the shelf for later?
Rachel: I usually have a very strong felt body sense, actually, of what I'm gonna go after. It feels like a little magnet right in the middle of my chest, and it kind of just pulls me to it. I'm like, "Ooh, okay, I guess we're doing that." And as far as what to pursue and what not to pursue, I have three vectors of engagement for any work that I do that I've only really been able to articulate fairly recently.
The things that I'm always going to be interested in are things that involve complexity. I'm not interested in any sort of simple story. If there's a clear "this happened, and then that happened, and this was the bad guy, and this was the good guy" - whatever. Anybody else can write that. I want to write things that are complex.
I want to write things that have to do with the levers of power. So I'm constantly fascinated by how people engage with them or choose not to engage with them. And so that's where you can see that coming across in, let's say, "Batshit", which is about me engaging with power in a really complex family relationship, where I was culturally set up to have no power as a young woman. And then with the prison thing, obviously levers of power. It's all about power. The whole thing is power.
And then the other thing is, I want to talk about real people. I have no interest in writing fluff pieces or pieces that are like, "Let me show you this very pretty picture of someone that they really want you to see." I want to talk about real people doing real work.
Eli: I love that. And you have such a wealth of experience to draw on. I mean, I know a fraction of your life to date, and I'm just gobsmacked by how diverse the people that you've come into contact with, and how you've kind of navigated your way through life in a way that I don't think a lot of people get the opportunity to do. How have those experiences influenced your writing and the way that you tell stories?
Rachel: I think they're really the foundation of it. I mean, even from a very young age, I was always interested in the person nobody was talking to, or the person who it's like, "Oh, they're doing something I don't understand." Well, why? Like, why are they doing that? And I really always just want to know about people, which is funny, because I'm phenomenally introverted, but I love listening to people, and I love hearing their stories, and especially the stories that they might think are boring.
I think most people have this idea that their own lives are boring, and there's nothing they've ever done that's possibly interesting. I think there's so much that people do that they don't realize is interesting to the people around them. I've even had conversations with taxi drivers that I've transcribed almost word for word, because they've told me about their lives, and I'm like, "Wow, you do crazy things. What are you doing with your life?"
I think if I had to say how it impacts my writing, I think it's heavily conversational. It's very much focused on showing people as they are, for good or for bad or for in between or for whatever. And I think it's helped me to come to whoever I'm talking to, whether they're so-called powerful or not, or whatever their life circumstances are, I come to it with this regard of like, "Okay, you are exactly as human as I am. You're just as human as this person or that person or this person." And everybody becomes equal, I think, in the telling of their story.
Eli: I love that. It's a really honest way to look at the world. It sort of flattens out all those hierarchies, doesn't it, and just turns it all into we're all people just trying to figure this crazy life out. I love this idea that you're sort of excavating for stories wherever you go.
Rachel: Yeah, I learned so much about these roller derby people. I don't know that anybody walks into a local roller derby bout like, "Tell me about your life. How'd you get here?" But it's fascinating. I love hearing these stories.
Eli: My husband is a photographer, and he's recently been going out almost on a daily basis, taking street photographs and just finding random people and taking their picture. And sometimes he ends up having conversations with them and the stories he brings home - these random people that he bumps into on the street, and they open up to him, and he comes back and he tells me all the stories, because I hate people and never leave my house. I live vicariously through him, but it's absolutely fascinating. There isn't anyone that has had a boring story or a boring experience that they've shared with him. It's all rich, juicy stuff.
So when it comes to being super honest and authentic about people and showing them in an objective light, obviously you're always going to bring your own biases and ideas to what you're writing, but if you're not shying away from showing people kind of warts and all, how do you balance that sort of need for honesty and authenticity with maybe the reactions that you get from the people that you're writing about? How does that play into the creative aspect of telling the story as well?
Rachel: I think that's always the issue, especially with memoir and with interview. The first thing that I think about when I go into this is: What are the consequences of me saying something? For instance, I've been interviewing a lot of former inmates for this part of the podcast, and I talk to them, and I say, "Look, you have had every bit of agency stripped from you for quite some time. I want you to know that you get to decide what part of you gets into this," because there's no point in me going in and trying to extract things from people or be like, "Ooh, look at this voyeurism." So I start by thinking about that.
Then I think that a lot of it comes down to a conversation of, we all do bad things. We all do great things. And in writing about someone, I think it's so important to show the bad and the good, but mostly to show the human. So it's not about, "Look at this person who did bad things to me" or whatever. In "Batshit", that's something I'm working through right now, and it's phenomenally difficult, because a lot of these things happened when I was a child and I didn't have a very nuanced understanding, like, I didn't have an adult understanding of what was going on. And so I'm going through this process right now of changing the first third of the book from, "Oh, look at all the bad things these people did to me," to "Look at all the bad things these people did to me, and look at how much they loved me while they were doing them." And that's so much harder.
But I think it's the exact same thing. It's all about, if I'm the one telling this story, I have the primary voice in anything that I'm writing. How can I extend as much regard and care and safety to the people that I am writing about while still also saying, "Hey, look, I'm writing about this because you did that." I'm not going to pretend you didn't do it. I'm not going to drag out every bad thing you've ever done just to make you feel bad. But hey, this happened, and let's talk about it.
Eli: That's just so respectful. That's such a wonderful way to interact with other humans. It's so rare as well. It is so refreshing to hear, because it's not an attitude we've seen much, particularly over the last few years, where we've seen just inflammatory stuff happening all over the world and people being awful to each other with no good reason.
Have you read "Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma" by Claire Dederer? It's one of the best books I've read in the last 10 years, I think, and it's about this idea of how do we consume the art of terrible people. That's the kind of basic premise that she starts with. Because she was a huge Roman Polanski fan, like, obsessed with his films, absolutely loved everything he did. And then she found out what he had done, and went on this journey of like, how can you consume this?
Her conclusions are so nuanced and thoughtful, but ultimately, it comes down to accepting the premise that we all have the capacity to be monsters, like we all have the capacity to do terrible things. It's in all of us. It's part of our humanity, and what swings the balance really is love and the appreciation of another person's humanity. And I think everybody in their life has loved a monster, you know, to a greater or lesser degree. If the work of Picasso shaped you as you were growing up, it's a lot more difficult to denounce everything he did than if he's just some guy who was a womanizer, you know, who has no emotional resonance with you.
Rachel: I love that. And I think that's such an important point to distinguish, like, the art from the artist. Going back to what we talked about, this stuff wants to happen. And just because I've done bad things - I'm sure I've done bad things, you know, I haven't done, I do my best not to harm people. And I'm a human. I walk around, I hurt people's feelings, I say the wrong thing, I do whatever. And so I don't think that we can use that to diminish the value of the art.
And I love that concept of like, that's part of our humanity. We can all find ourselves doing this kind of thing if we found ourselves in different circumstances. With different families or different support structures. I talk about a lot in "Beyond Broken" because I have a whole episode about the guards, and it's so easy to be like, "Ooh, you know, ACAB means prison guards too. Like, fuck them cops." And I am not the biggest fan of law enforcement, but I knew that I had to have an episode about them, because if I'm just going to stereotype them and be like, "Oh, they're all just assholes and they just want to come in here and hurt people," it's just not true.
And I think given the circumstances in which they work and given the power structures that they navigate, I think any one of us could easily find ourselves doing the same kinds of things because you're locked in with people you don't like, and you can do whatever you want to them, and there's no consequences. Of course, you're going to do some bad things.
Eli: It's fascinating, isn't it? And I think there's a very particularly with the culture that we have with the internet these days. It's very much like black and white, you're good, you're bad. There's a lot of policing of language, and I think especially on the left, we have this terrible habit of going around and just kind of infighting with ourselves. While the right wing are very, very clear. They have a very, very clear message.
And I think that's been very much exacerbated by cancel culture and just the atmosphere of the internet at the moment. And I think more and more we need stories like "Beyond Broken" and books like "Monsters" where we remind ourselves of how nuanced it is to be a human and how we are basically evolved animals running around on a rock, hurtling through space. We're all doing our best and it's hard. And that doesn't mean that there aren't consequences for our actions, but it does mean that there is maybe compassion as well.
Rachel: I think that's such an important balance, and that's why it's hard, and that's why people don't want to do it, because it's so much easier to be like, "That's the bad guy and I'm the good guy" or whatever. But to be like, "That person did a thing that I find absolutely viscerally abhorrent, and I will defend to the death their right to human dignity." I still think they should be held accountable. There's still punishment, there's still rehabilitation, there's still all these things. It's not like we're just like, "Oh gosh, they're just a product of their environment," or whatever the line was from some time ago. It's like, no, they did a bad thing because they wanted to do a bad thing, and they enjoyed it, and they would do it again. And we still have to treat them as humans. So how do we deal with that? And that's so much harder than being like, "Oh, you used the wrong word."
Eli: It's so tough. So talking about all of this stuff - you're delving really, really deep. You have to be really careful of your mental health. Certainly excavating your past trauma for the "Batshit" memoir, and dealing with people who are damaged, who are angry, who have all of these big emotions. What do you do to take care of yourself and your mental health while you're engaging with these subjects in a creative way?
Rachel: Well, for several years, I tried to ignore it, and that went very badly. But as a result of that, I had a breakdown or a breakthrough a couple years ago, where I was like, "Oh, I don't want to get up tomorrow." Not that I want to be dead. I don't want to kill myself. I'm not doing that. But I was sitting in bed crying at the thought of waking up and having to do another day. And I was like, that seems not right. I should think about that.
So I reached out to some friends with some clinical experience, and then I ended up working with a therapist, doing EMDR, which has been phenomenal.
Eli: Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing?
Rachel: Yeah, the eye movement, brain rewiring stuff. It's just absolutely fascinating. So that's been extremely supportive in dealing with the trauma stuff, especially. And I've been so amazed, because I've been doing it for about a year now, and I've been so amazed at the amount of anxiety and stress I was walking around with in my body that I didn't realize, because I just assumed that everyone walked around with their stomach kind of hurting a little bit all the time. And now I'm like, "Oh, wait, is this how you people move through the world? Have I been doing life on hard mode?"
It's been really great. But I also just talk to people a lot. I talk to close friends, and if there's something that comes up that throws me, which I don't know if it's just experience or temperament or both, like it's very rare for me to come across somebody telling me something where I get really thrown by it. Most of the time, I'm able to be like, "Well, that's really fucked up. How are you feeling about it?" But if something happens, then I'll go and I'll talk to a friend, and I'll be like, "I have to say something absolutely terrible to you that was told to me because I can't keep it inside my head. It has to exist outside of my face as well," and that's been very, very helpful.
Eli: Yeah, having a good support structure around you is absolutely vital. And I think anything that you're doing where you're not only excavating your own trauma, because we all do that as artists to a certain extent - there's a lot of stuff that I've only been able to process through making art about it, which has been kind of a mindfuck. But when you're also taking on other people's trauma as well, and anytime that you express something that you've been through, you attract people who want to tell you all of their "me too" same stories, which can be really hard to deal with. Do you find that you've ended up with an inbox full of people who are like, "Oh my god, I have to tell you this," they have to trauma dump on you now, because you've made this podcast, or you've written this essay or something?
Rachel: I've had a lot of people with the prison experience be like, "Let me tell you about the absolutely horrific things that were done to me and my family." And sometimes I'll listen to it and I understand where it comes from, because there's genuinely just very little support for people who are going through this in the United States. I've looked for support groups, I've looked for whatever, and they just don't exist. I mean, there's some kind of shitty Facebook groups and a subreddit, but that's it.
When I get that, if I'm in a space where I feel like I can, I'll respond kindly and say, "That sounds absolutely terrible. I'm so sorry that you're going through this." And if there's a resource that I have top of mind, I'll be like, "Hey, go check this out." Or, "Here's your congress person. Go tell them that. That sounds like a great person to tell."
What I do most of the time, though, and this is with everything, is I have my phone filtered to where I get exactly one phone call, and that is from my husband. That's the only notification I get. I don't check my email but once a day, if that. I'm just very - I have some very strong digital fences, and I've also had to get very good with my boundaries to be like, "I understand that. I see that you are hurting. I cannot help you with that right now."
Eli: That's really, really good advice for anybody else who's dealing with it, and also really good practice as well. I yearn to be at the point where I can ring fence myself off so completely, but I am such a dopamine junkie, and a few times I've been caught out just kind of checking stuff just before bed, and then something will come in.
Rachel: I think this is where the upside of my trauma stuff manifests, is a lot of sensory processing. So, like, hypersensitivity to stuff. And so I don't enjoy being on the phone. I'm like, "Oh God, take it away." I cannot wait for the day where I don't do internet stuff every day and I'm just like, "No, no, everyone leave me alone. Just let me walk around and look at the pond."
Eli: I love that. I aspire to be that. Very much. So switching gears slightly, you're doing lots of different projects and different mediums for delivering the story. You've got the book, you've got the podcast, you're doing a lot of essay work at the moment. How do you decide which format is best suited to each story? Is there a process that you go through for that?
Rachel: Some of it's just intuitive and felt. For instance, I knew "Batshit" was going to be a book because I had a lot of things to say about it. I knew it could never be just an essay. If it's an idea that I've only had for a relatively short amount of time, or that I've only recently articulated, usually I'm like, it's probably an essay. I could probably just knock that out.
And then, in terms of voice, I think about whose voice needs to be heard in this. If it's mainly mine, essay, right? Because it's my essay, I can write an essay and do what I want. But with "Beyond Broken" it's critical that most of the people talking are not me, and so a podcast lends itself much better to that.
I listened to a lot of investigative reporting podcasts, and that was how it sort of dropped into my brain to do it, because I was like, I think I could do that. And so it's been a big experiment, but I think it's worked out really well, and I've been very pleased with being able to showcase people's voices in a way that I hadn't before, even through my investigative reporting, writing and magazine features and stuff like that. It's just a whole new level, and it's fascinating.
Eli: Yeah, there's something very different about somebody's story being told in their voice by them. Because even if you're writing it down verbatim, there's a filter there between what they actually said and how it comes across in writing. There's something about the spoken word that you don't get with written text.
Rachel: It feels really different. And I love being able to share the literal voices of people that you would never hear, right? Like they would maybe know who lives in their tiny, little, small town, they might know those people, but they're not going to travel. They're not going to go different places. Nobody is going to sit down and talk to the homeless guy and be like, "What's up, man? How'd you get here?" And then to be able to share their voice with other people has just been a really incredible experience.
Eli: Giving people who wouldn't ordinarily have a platform a platform to tell their story, basically. Unless you're the sort of person who can set up a podcast and is comfortable broadcasting to the masses, a lot of the times, there are just too many barriers to those stories being made public in a bigger way. And I think this is such an important part of getting rid of fear, because we get this kind of mass hysteria around certain types of people.
I mean, it's happening a lot with trans people, particularly in the UK at the moment, where there's just this hysteria and the voices that aren't being heard are the voices of the people who are actually being talked about and judged and condemned. And if you stop for a second and actually seek out those voices and listen, the fear goes away. You're not frightened of people who've been in prison, because you actually heard that guy on that podcast, and I related to him, and I understood him, and there's a point of connection there.
And I think that's such a powerful thing. If there is ever anyone, any class of people that you are terrified of because of some kind of cultural reason, or because people tell you to be, the best thing to do is to actually seek out those voices and to listen to what they have to say and to hear about their experiences. So I think what you're doing is actually crucial to the health of society as a whole. I don't want to sound too hyperbolic, but I think this is so important.
Rachel: Yeah, and that's why I spent the past four years really getting very clear on what I have as my vision for my life and my work, and my vision for my work is to ensure the vitality of the human endeavor, and that only happens when we have everyone. Everyone gets to be a human, whether they want to participate or not. I'm like, everybody gets to be a human. That's my baseline.
Eli: I love that so much. So going on to "Feral Wife", I think this is such an interesting story. Do you want to tell us a little bit about what that project is and how it came to be?
Rachel: Yeah, I would love to. So "Feral Wife" is my second memoir. I'm in the extremely early stages of writing it, which mostly right now looks like sentences dropping into my head, and then I make notes, and I know I'll come back to them later. But it's the story of how I fell in love with this person, and they were very unexpectedly sent to prison a year later. And it was just absolutely shattering when that happened.
But I think the other part of this story, as crazy as it sounds, I think prison's primarily the backdrop, because the main struggle in this story is me being in a healthy, stable relationship with someone who loves the shit out of me, and I have no idea how to receive that. That's just wild to me.
So the title actually comes from something when my husband and I were first starting to date and he was wanting to say "I love you." And I was like, "Whoa." And so I told him, I said, "If you say that, I need you to really mean it. I can't do this halfway. And I also need you to understand that it's going to be like adopting a shelter cat, because I don't know exactly how this works. I haven't had a history of people loving me, and it absolutely fucking terrifies me." And so he's been very patient, and it took me about two and a half years to realize that it wasn't some sort of very elaborate, long con, and that he actually just does genuinely love me. I finally came to the understanding of that, which sounds crazy, you know, I'm in my mid-30s, and now I'm like, "Wait, wait, wait, this person just enjoys my company and wants to spend time with me, and for some inexplicable reason, has dedicated his life to my health and well-being?" Like, how does that even happen? So that's the story of "Feral Wife."
Eli: I love that. I can relate so hard. I was very much the same when I met my husband. I was committed to being single for the rest of my life. I was completely fine with that. I'm like, "It's perfection which is obviously completely unattainable, or I'm good the way I am, thanks." And then this guy shows up and I yeah, about two and a half years of just like, "What's the catch? What's going on?"
Rachel: Exactly. I was the same way. I had been married for nine years in my 20s. And it wasn't a great relationship, and it ended pretty badly. And I was like, "You know what? I'm doing good. I am running my own business. I'm traveling all over the world. I've got great friends. I enjoy dating when I enjoy dating, and then I don't when I don't want to."
And then I had bottomless mimosas one Sunday brunch, and I was like, "I'm gonna make a Bumble," and then I met my husband. And I was very like, "Hey, I need you to understand, this is never going to be anything serious. I'm not looking for long term. I'm only interested in casual." And he's like, "Okay, cool. But do I have permission to seduce you?" And I was like, "You can try."
Eli: Oh, that's adorable.
Rachel: I know.
Eli: Oh, fantastic. So when you're writing that story, obviously you're involving him to a great degree. When you're writing "Batshit," obviously your whole family is involved in that process. How do you navigate the challenges of being true to your experience whilst also being respectful of other people's involvement, like their idea of how the story should go?
Rachel: I think there are a couple elements to that. I mean, the one that everybody says with memoir, right? I think it's the Anne Lamott quote that says, "If you didn't want me to write about you, you should behave better." There's an element of that to it, and there's the very real element of, I'm no contact with my biological family, and the only people that I really would have been concerned about their reactions have died now. So I have a lot more freedom to be like, "Okay, I can write this, and I don't have to worry about hurting you."
And I think it all comes back to, how can I respect that for you? I'm sure there was something very different going on, you know, like, nobody goes into their life and they're like, "I'm gonna be the abusive parent," or "I'm gonna be the guy who's an asshole to my wife before she goes on to marry somebody else." Nobody walks into their life as that role.
And so it's really important to me that I don't just make that the entire reason they're in the story. I have to show who they really were, good and bad, because we all participate in these dynamics, too, even in an abusive relationship. We all participate to a degree. And so being very honest about my own participation, and saying what actually happened, and saying, "Hey, this is how this happened when I was eight. This is how I remember it. Maybe I was wrong, I don't know, but this is what I have."
And then in the current day with my husband, I talk to him about everything. I'm like, "Hey, is it okay if I share this? How do you feel about that? Would you be creeped out if the entire world knew this about our marriage?" And bless him, he's the most ADHD man who has ever existed. So he's like, "Sure, I don't care." And then, like, seven seconds later, he's forgotten about it. So he exists in the eternal present, and he's like, "Oh, okay, great. Sounds good."
Eli: I love that. And I love, I mean, it comes back to when you're talking to strangers as well, like, just that idea of being respectful and aware of everybody's kind of three-dimensional humanity.
Rachel: And never trying to write anybody who comes across as a caricature or a stereotype or just like a cardboard cutout to make me look awesome as the hero of the story, or whatever. That's so boring. And like prison stuff, I deliberately chose not to name any of the guards for a couple reasons, and that's one of them. I don't want to be like, "Ooh, this person did all these mean things to us," you know, even though they certainly have.
But it's also because I want to respect their privacy, right? They're doing their job. They're doing it badly. They're fucking it up, and they're hurting people. And it's not my job to go in there and be like, "Look at you doing all the bad stuff. We are completely perfect, and you're the worst person ever." Like, no, what a boring story that is.
So using pseudonyms, which we also do, because it's easier to talk about them without them realizing, you know, when we're in there. So we use pseudonyms, and that's more true to the story as it's playing out. And it's the best way I can think of to respect their privacy while also being like, "Hey, you straight up did this stuff."
Eli: Yeah, that's a really good way of approaching it. So looking at your whole body of work, and I want to extend this beyond the stories that you're telling at the moment, what do you think is the common thread that connects everything? What's the through line between everything that you've done, and how does that reflect your growth as a creative person over time?
Rachel: Oh, I love that question. So if I'm looking back to the very earliest days, I was always writing stories. I then did some journalism, and then went into marketing. And throughout all of that, I think even in the marketing stuff, I've really been focused on having regard for every human involved with that.
So whether I was interviewing someone, and I totally didn't really know how to do it, and I kind of sucked, because I was really young and I was still learning how to be a journalist. But I always just wanted to talk to them. I didn't come in with, like, "Here's my list of questions, and let me answer it." I was like, "Can I make you a coffee? How do you make tea? Can we talk about this for a second?"
And then with the marketing, I've just never been interested in the manipulation and the "Oh, let me make you feel bad to do something," because it can actually be a very creative and generative process, if you encounter people with the respect of remembering that there's a real 3D human on the other side of whatever you're selling.
And then, of course, now I think that's the same thing. It's having this regard for everybody involved. And that's the easy part. I think the growth part has been being like, "Oh shit, me too." That's the hard part - regarding myself with as much care as the people that I write about.
Eli: Yeah, that's a big one. That's a big, big one. Like we were saying before we started recording, we were talking about the importance of art and how it's so much easier to see everybody else's art as valid and important and vital to the state of humanity and our own is kind of like, "Oh, I did a little thing."
Rachel: Yeah, "Sorry to bother you, but, like, I wrote it. Whatever. Don't read it. It's cold."
Eli: Turning that kind of respect and sense of magnanimity around towards yourself and being that generous and compassionate with yourself, that's the work of a lifetime, really, isn't it? Especially as a woman, especially as a marginalized person, especially as someone who's dealing with trauma and neurodivergence and all sorts of other things. It's just and, and, and, and they pile up, right?
Rachel: The work of a lifetime, indeed. I had made the critical error of being like, "No, I think I'm pretty good, pretty solid." And then, of course, I get editing this version of "Batshit," and I was like, "Oh, no more self-development, ah!"
Eli: Oh yes, the universe pisses itself laughing.
Rachel: Exactly. I was talking to my therapist, and she's so - I call her "evil" and then her first name, because I think she is evil. But she said something to me, and she's so wonderful and snappy, which is why I keep going to her. She was like, "So, what's the first word? You're diagnosed with CPTSD. What's the first letter of that stand for?" It's complex. And she's like, "Yeah, it's complex. There's more elements." And I was like, "Fine, okay, rude."
Eli: Oh, Rachel, this has been an absolute joy. You are always - we have amazing conversations. And I love all of the work that you're doing at the moment. And like I said at the beginning, I have no doubt that you are going to absolutely fly with everything that you're doing. It's fantastic. Tell us, where can people find you online if they want to read your writing and listen to the podcast? Where's the best place to find you?
Rachel: The best place to find me is at my website. It's RachelCatherineAllen.com, and that's Catherine with a C. You can also go to Substack and look up Rachel Catherine Allen, and I'll pop up there. You can also send me an email, like in the times of old, at Hello@RachelCatherineAllen.com, and I will answer it like an old person, because I do that.
Eli: And all of those links will be in the show notes as well. So if you come over to ElinorTrierStudio.com/podcast, you'll find Rachel there and all of her links and more information about her. Rachel, thank you so much. This has been amazing. You are an absolute star.
Rachel: Oh, likewise. This was so much fun. Thank you for having me.
Eli: Oh my goodness. Thank you so much Rachel for being on the show. Oh my gosh. I swear if she doesn't end up being on the New York Times bestseller list, I will eat my hat. Don't forget to go and check out her work. You can find all of her information in the show notes. And thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of Zuzu's Haus of Cats Presents. We'll be back in one month with our next guest. I can't wait to introduce her to you. Make sure you don't miss a thing by subscribing to my YouTube channel, Zuzu's Haus of Cats, and coming over to ElinorTrier.com/podcast and signing up so you never miss an episode. Until next time, I will see you around. Bye.