Tattoo of the Soul: An Interview with Shelley DeWees

By Aleksandra Kamila KrzywickaNovember 1, 2016

Tattoo of the Soul: An Interview with Shelley DeWees
FOR MONTHS, my books called to me while I focused on tests, activities, clubs, and homework assignments. On the last day of school, I came home with a bag full of books, finally able to give these friends my full attention. I lay down that afternoon and read. I read for two days straight. My back began to hurt from being quiescent, but I kept reading, caught by the siren song woven by the books’ pages, and a sigh from deep within my belly filled the air. I was finally home.

Talking with Shelley DeWees for this interview felt like that: comfortable, honest. She has a bubbly laugh, a clear even voice that fills the phone connection with inflection and musicality as if she is singing to a song only she can hear. Her words are eloquent. Her answers thoughtful. The hour disappears and I keep wanting to ask her more questions, trying to squeeze out just a little more time with this friend I just made, this educated, world-traveling former teacher who loves British literature as much as I do.

In her 20s, Shelley DeWees taught music in public school as arts and music programs were under fire, the first on the list to be cut from school curricula, to be drained of funds, and to be undervalued. Leaving teaching after a year, she studied and received a degree in ethnomusicology. But prospects in the field were dim, the job market inundated. She had loans to pay. What could she do?

Feeling adrift and rudderless in the sea of possibilities, Shelley went to work as a chef at a spiritual retreat called the Garden of One Thousand Buddhas, in her native Montana. At the center of the garden, a statue of Yum Chenmo, also known as the Mother of Transcendent Wisdom — and according to Shelley a powerful, badass woman — reigns over 1,000 Buddha replicas. A tattoo of Yum Chenmo also adorns the whole of DeWees’s back, signifying, she says, admiration and connection and rediscovery. While reading the book, I felt as if Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Helen Maria Williams, Catherine Crowe, Sara Coleridge, Charlotte Turner Smith, Dinah Mulock Craik, and Mary Robinson were becoming my friends; women that I wanted to emulate, to know more about, and to draw inspiration from — maybe even get tattoos of them. There are many reasons to mark one’s body, to let the ink filter beneath the skin and permanently sign and reveal one’s self. For DeWees, the tattoo serves to memorialize her life in Montana, and more importantly, she says, “I felt more like myself when I got it.”

Shelley DeWees is a writer, a researcher, a traveler, an explorer, and an excavator. She enjoys music and understanding how that music fits into the puzzle of history, how time and place influence composition. Her degree in ethnomusicology and the skills she developed there are evident in her book, Not Just Jane. 

But before she began her three-year journey to complete her project, she lived in South Korea and taught college-level English courses on her favorite writers of British literature. Through the lens of her students’ answers she realized her own biases, her own limitations. After watching a stage production of Pride and Prejudice, and then flying back to South Korea, she gazed at her beloved bookshelf in her small, compact, and simple Korean apartment and wondered, “Are these the only women who wrote during Jane Austen’s time? What am I missing?”

From these musings, DeWees went on a quest that became Not Just Jane, a book that focuses on seven remarkable English female writers who published over a span of 150 years. These writers include the aforementioned Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Helen Maria Williams, Catherine Crowe, Sara Coleridge, Charlotte Turner Smith, Dinah Mulock Craik, and Mary Robinson. Not Just Jane masterfully weaves a tale of history, culture, and writing. Each of these women is fascinating, but their works had been consigned to oblivion until DeWees started her quest.

Not Just Jane is a gem, a rediscovery of female perseverance in a patriarchal society, and shows how deftly, artfully, and successfully female writers can navigate their circumstances, even in a society where women are expected to exist solely for the benefit of their husbands and families. These remarkable women managed to overcome their difficult childhoods, their often terrible marriages, the restrictions of class, and the expectations of society to create works that propelled new ideas to the fore — the role of women in society, freedom, and revolution — and do so in cunning and subversive ways. 

DeWees writes about these women as if they are her friends, as if she had a window into their lives, as if she was their confidante. Her prose is smooth and flowing, like her voice. It is pleasant to listen to, and just like the works of her seven new friends, it deftly and clearly conveys the struggles of being a female writer during pre-Victorian and Victorian times. Introducing new writers to the canon also helps clarify what being in Jane Austen’s world really meant. The picture that Austen only outlined, these other writers color in. DeWees provides the reality behind the prevalent Jane Austen fantasy. Her honesty, her voice, and her prose invite the reader on a journey into the past and into the lives of seven talented, educated, progressive women who shaped their surroundings as much as those surroundings shaped them.

¤


ALEKSANDRA KAMILA KRZYWICKA: Has the fantasy aspect of Jane Austen’s books changed for you through the course of your research and writing about these seven other women writers? How?

SHELLEY DEWEES: It has changed. That fantasy, in my mind, is still valid, still something I enjoy escaping to, especially in this time, during this toxic election: Jane Austen provides a comforting image. But now these images are more fully rendered. I understand more about the paradox of female experience. It wasn’t ever all perfect. It was inconvenient. People were sick and it was difficult being female. These women had to reconcile how to be a relative being, a being always compared to their male counterparts. To write was really brave.

Not Just Jane reveals the complex pressures faced by these seven female writers in a historical period when marriage was the woman’s sole goal in life. How do you feel about this as a woman and a writer and now a mother?

Marriage is complicated. It is, I find, a giving relationship. I believe, inside, that there has to be a way that I can be a female and be a wife and that these two concepts can coexist. As I researched, being my own person became a bone of contention — my husband kept saying, “You’re not anti-marriage but you’re writing as though you are.” Historically, marriage has done so much damage to women’s lives and has colored our experience of ourselves.

I don’t have a good way to reconcile these two things. I believe that they can coexist in the same world, and staying married as I’ve aged has influenced me. I believe that I can stand on my own, and to go through this research on my own. I can discover this idea of marriage and how oppressive it is, and yet not reject it for myself. For some reason it works.

What parallels struck you between our time and the past that these women occupied?

It is all still happening today. So many movies are still failing the Bechdel test, whereby the work of fiction features at least two women, that these two women speak to each other, and that they speak to each other about something other than a man. That’s how low the bar is.

There were many obstacles that these seven women had to face, at a time when writing and publishing were the only places where they could have a chance to achieve success and meet men on almost equal ground. What obstacles do you think are facing women today?

I would love to say that we are facing new obstacles and that we’re no longer fighting for equal footing. To our great misfortune, I feel the obstacles have not really changed. Women are still fighting for the same kinds of things and to have the same critical standard applied to them, for their work to be valued the way men’s work is valued. That is one of our society’s greatest challenges. It’s a difficult row to hoe. I hope that one day we will be as enlightened as the Star Trek universe, where there is a meritocracy without the bias of gender.

How much of our identity is defined by gender?

It would be silly to think that we could separate ourselves from gender in our current society. Truly, a genderless world is not something we can currently aim for. But I do think women and men can coexist on this planet, and without us having to be 24-hour women, constantly made up and on the go. As a society we should work toward equality. But these changes are slow. We can’t separate ourselves from our culture, but I hope that women will soon have equal footing with men.

These seven women were often criticized not just by men, but also policed by women, specifically in terms of morality and conduct. What are your thoughts on such conflict in our current culture? What role do women play in each other’s lives?

Conflict in people is, unfortunately, a natural quality — we are far better at building fences than at building bridges. But I believe that women could stand together better as a sisterhood. Competition among females has historical roots in the marriage market, which appeared at this time, the idea that as a woman you had to grab the right guy because he’s going to be responsible for every last thing. On top of that, these women were making decisions like these as teenagers, often doing it in competition with older women.

As a sisterhood, I implore women to see how we have been acculturated into seeing men as something we need to acquire to be whole. I wish women could see that they are autonomous. They are just like men, and can stand on their own two feet. If women saw this, that we are all on this blue ball together, I think it would strengthen that sisterhood and reduce the conflict among us.

What are the qualities you admire in these seven women?

Their tenacity and brazen bravery. They just went out and did it. They just went for it. Despite the obstacles, despite their position as writers, they were still able to participate in their culture.

If you could meet one of these women to talk to them, which would you pick?

That is so hard. I have such an affinity for all of them. Each grew in all my heart as I wrote each new chapter. After I finished a chapter, I would say, “She’s my favorite.” But, that said, I felt a particularly strong connection with Sara Coleridge. There is something awe-inspiring in how she negotiated her path. I would love to ask her, “Where did you stand, mentally? Did you even know that you were shirking so many values? Were you aware of your own paradoxical position, and how did you manage it so cannily?” She showed incredible perception.

If all seven could meet up with you, what do you think that conversation would be like?

Becoming a mother has opened me to a whole group of women that I might not have met otherwise. In much the same way, I feel that these women would bond over their shared experience of being writers. They would come together at a party or a bar, and we could all just relax. We would get along famously.

What would their Twitter feeds look like?

Charlotte Turner Smith would have an enormous amount of baby pictures. She’d also write occasional poetry (and it would be effusively sad), and she might also post a GoFundMe campaign to help with her financial troubles.

Helen Maria Williams would be all about politics; every piece out there would somehow find its way to her page. She would also contribute works of her own on the subject, in English and French.

Mary Robinson, being at the tippy top of the fashionable world but also profoundly observant, would likely have forward-thinking fashion pieces of her own creation. They wouldn’t be all fluff, though: she’d write something like “The Sexual Politics of Dark Florals.”

Catherine Crowe would be all about the mystical. She’d probably also have a profile photo that included her aura.

Sara Coleridge’s Twitter page would have erudite musings on the classics from ancient Greece and Rome, not to mention more than a few of her father’s works. There would also be pictures from when she went on vacation alone.

Dinah Mulock Craik would have lots about feminism, most especially of the “You don’t need a man” variety. She would emphasize female autonomy over all else, and be a proud supporter of the Lean In philosophy.

Mary Elizabeth Braddon, being one of those people who finds the time to do 200 percent more than the rest of us, would have a new piece of original fiction posted every day, alongside pictures of her children wearing hand-stitched clothing and a great many home improvement projects.

How important do you think having a writing role model is to you as a writer?

Women writers, historically, had only been able to emulate male authors until the women’s tradition grew and came into its own. Women’s fiction, a sexist term, back then was a new genre. It evolved into something really different.

Models are important, at least to me. Charles Dickens serves really well as a role model for me, with his commitment to quality, his ability to dig and just go and go, and his ability to make his characters come alive.

Margaret Atwood is another. She embodies the seven women authors’ commitment to their art and being prolific.

The idea of honesty and facility in using language to convey ideas without offending sensibilities appears in the book. How honest should a writer be? How aware of audience?

Is the point of writing to please an audience? Or is it art, without an audience? No matter your position on this, if your writing is a mercenary venture you must have a culture of trust between you and your reader. For myself, I want people to connect with me, and I to them, through the book. Most of all, though, I wanted to be me. I wanted the book to be voice-driven.

My approach, in other words, is to talk to people through my writing. I’m an open person by nature; I find it important to just say it, and that speaks to an important theme in my writing, this notion of exclusivity in literature. A lot of these women have remained hidden because of it, this idea that they need to live in a leather-bound volume on some shelf in a library, that we have to be reverent, hushed, careful in our approach. But I believe books are conduits between people — an author’s words are their voice, and we all deserve to hear them. They need to be available to be appreciated.

What is your next project?

I would love to rerelease these women’s works with new introductions. I would love it if I could pen an introduction to them or even focus on just one of the women and delve even deeper. Another option is to take the Not Just Jane approach and do a whole other set of women from an earlier time period. There is still so much to do.

I love nonfiction. I love the process of researching to find something interesting that no one else knows about. I want to keep working with these girls. I want them to be loved like Jane Austen.

¤


Aleksandra Kamila Krzywicka is an MFA student at University of California, Riverside, concentrating on nonfiction with an interest in screenwriting and fiction. Originally from Poland, living the immigrant experience, she enjoys writing about family, culture, travel, memory, and dragons.

LARB Contributor

Aleksandra Kamila Krzywicka is an MFA student at University of California, Riverside, focusing on nonfiction with an interest in screenwriting and fiction. Originally from Poland, living the immigrant experience, she enjoys writing about family, culture, travel, memory, and dragons.

Share

LARB Staff Recommendations

Did you know LARB is a reader-supported nonprofit?


LARB publishes daily without a paywall as part of our mission to make rigorous, incisive, and engaging writing on every aspect of literature, culture, and the arts freely accessible to the public. Help us continue this work with your tax-deductible donation today!