For my most recent Badass Women blog interview, I spoke with Julie Kedzie, a retired American mixed martial artist and now a writer. Listen to the interview yourself or read highlights from the interview below.
Julie Kedzie is a retired American mixed martial artist. She is a third-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do and specializes in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Julie has worked for Invicta Fighting Championships as a fight commentator and interviewer, as well as a matchmaker. Most recently, she completed the Non-Fiction Writing Program at the University of Iowa, and she is now writing a book about her MMA experience.
Here are all the best highlights from my interview with Julie.
First, tell us a little about yourself and your current work. What is your mission?
Well, I was a professional MMA fighter for nine years. I retired from that with—um, not a great record I guess!—a record of 29 fights…And I thought at first I would move into the promotion side of MMA, and I got a job as a matchmaker. I’d already done stuff with analysis—I do color commentary for an all-female show—but I really kind of realized during the matchmaking process that there was a part of me that was a little unfulfilled.
And even though I loved it, and I loved the company I worked for, I ended up quitting matchmaking. I still work as a commentator for that company. That company is called Invicta FC, and it’s amazing. It’s an all-female fight company, which is wonderful, but I ended up quitting the matchmaking when I applied to the University of Iowa Non-Fiction Writing Program and was accepted. And so, at this point, I am graduating in May and I’m going to stay on for a position with the department next year and then from then on, it’s just writing hopefully.
So, let me ask you about the matchmaking stuff. I think at least for me—and I suspect for like a lot of the people who might read romance—we don’t necessarily know what matchmaking entails.
Yeah, I would think that matchmaking in romance has a little bit more to do with love action!…When you consider people doing their passion and fighting one another in the cage an act of love, which can be in a non-traditional sort of way, yeah it is a love connection. But what you would do as a matchmaker is you find fighters of the same weight class who have roughly the same experience. Or you’ve seen them fight and you know they will put on a really good performance against one another. And you try to convince them to fight, but then you also kind of deal with keeping a roster of fighters in your organization and you work with developing what they can do for your organization.
You’re always looking for people who are marketable but not marketable necessarily in the sense that a lot of people—and I think a lot of fight shows do this—they look for the sexy fighter, the fighter who’s going to sell tickets because she’s really pretty. But a lot of the time, that’s actually not what you’re really looking for, or at least that’s not what my organization would look for. We always look for the people who would really put on good performances and represent themselves well. And I think that’s why the organization I work for—Invicta FC—I think it’s why it thrives. Because the president of it, Shannon Knapp, just really wanted to make sure that it was good fighters getting good chances.
So, in matchmaking when I was doing that work, I was watching a lot of footage of fighters talking to their managers, talking to the fighters, trying to get them under contract with our company so that they would fight one another and fight for us. And hopefully, you know, everybody wants to be a champion, so you’re kind of trying to work with them to develop them up to that point. But you know in a fight somebody wins and somebody loses, so…
What made you end up deciding to break up with MMA fighting?
I didn’t actually mind being a bad guy. You know, when you hear things, when they’re made up about you, you’re just like, “that’s not true. That’s not what happened at all. You’re misrepresenting me.” But fighting is a really hard profession, and it’s a profession where you have to at times think that the world is against you in order to keep your mindset right. Like, you didn’t lose that fight, you were set up to lose or whatever.
There was a really interesting article by a fighter named Ben Fowlkes for the website called MMA junkie, and it was about kind of how Joan Didion said, we tell ourselves stories in order to live. It was kind of like the stories fighters tell themselves in order to keep going and how would you move those stories. You know when you start raising some truth that you didn’t want to face then it’s time to maybe hang it up.
So, to be the best fighters, you’re sort of creating a story for yourself and then having to redefine it depending on if you win or lose?
Oh yeah. And it’s not always the first wins or losses right. Like I mean I retired after 29 fights, but I was on a four-fight losing skid, and one of my best performances was a loss. Some of my best performances, actually, were losses, and they just showed what I was capable of. And, you know, I just happened to be in there with somebody who did something better than me and they caught me or you know.
But because MMA is so financially dependent, losing can be a real blow. It can also be an incredible encouragement early on in your career as to what you’re capable of. Like you were with somebody that much better than you and you survived, or you were with a top grappler in the world, and you didn’t get tapped out or you were with the top striker in the world and you didn’t get knocked out. You know, it tells you really good things about yourself, but you have to maintain this attitude a lot of the time that “I’m going in there to win, I can beat anybody in the entire world. Nobody is going to beat me. I’m the best.”
You know, and after a certain point some people realize they’re not, and it’s hard to maintain that illusion when you come to that truth and you’re just like this is not…you know, I’ve done what I could do. I’ve reached the top. I reached what I’m capable of now. I don’t actually know if I reached what I was capable of physically as a fighter when I retired, but I knew that mentally I couldn’t play that game anymore. I was just like, “I know that I’m not the best anymore.”
And I’m pretty stubborn. Like in my mind, it’s “No, I can’t beat everybody in the world, and this is taking a huge toll on me psychologically mentally and on the position I’m in and what I’m dealing with in my life. And I just don’t want to do it anymore.” Like fighting became less fun than actually doing MMA. And a fight should be—for the fighter—the best part. If it’s not the best part, then there’s something wrong.
So, we’re talking about why you broke up with it. But why did you get into MMA fighting to begin with?
There is a part of me that just really wanted to achieve and compete, and it was different, but it was the kind of different felt really comfortable. I don’t know if that makes sense, but it was just like, you know, you have your first fight and you win and it’s something where you just realize, “oh my god, this is amazing I’m capable of doing this.” And then like with me, I had my first fight, I won, and I was just like, f*#@ this is amazing. I lost my next two, and I was frustrated, but it was like there was nothing in me that was going to quit. I may have like quit during a fight or capped out during the fight because my arm was going to your wrenched off, but I’m just going to get better.
And when you get to the point where it’s just like, I can be better at this, but I have to be better at this in a way that makes sense for my life and for me, it was okay to represent this sport from a different angle. Like my love of the sport is going to be gone because I’m losing my love of fighting.
And I do think in every stage of the fight. When you’re a fighter, you have to be insanely selfish. You have to look out for number one. You have to surround yourself by people who are looking out for you, number one, and a matchmaker is looking out for the entire card.
So, when I was fighting, I knew that selfishness. I knew I had the mentality of “everybody’s against me, all I can trust is my teammates and my coaches.” And then when I kind of switched roles I was like, “wow, now I have to worry about this entire fight card that doesn’t fall through.” So, if one fight drops out or one fighter is really unhappy that can’t be my primary focus. I have to make them as happy as I can. But I’ve got, you know, 16 other fighters on this card that I have to take care of, too, and I want the fights to go well.
So, I was really kind of happy when I transitioned more into talking about storylines of fights. As a writer now, and going back to the human side of it, not that you’re not human when you’re dealing with an entire fight card, it was just a different mentality. And so now individual stories are more important to me.
That leads us into your current work. What got you started as a writer and what are you writing about now? Is it the mixed martial arts?
Yeah…I was living in Kansas City, and I was emailing a friend kind of back and forth who is a writer, and he said, “You should really try writing,” because our emails would get really fun, and we’d tell little stories and this, that, and the other. And I drunkenly signed up on New Year’s for a writing group. I was like, “yeah, I’m going to join this creative writing group.” …And in that group, I think it was the first or second piece I worked on, and I worked really really hard, and I loved it.
I had an English major from, like, 20 million years earlier before I started fighting, and I’d forgotten how much I liked writing. And that piece that I wrote—I was coincidentally friends with one of the Sports Illustrated editors just from dealing and fighting many years earlier—and he said, “hey, would you want to write about your retirement?” I was like, “Oh, funny thing is I already did. I just wrote it for the group.” So, I sent it to him, and he ended up publishing it.
It was great. I mean it was good but it was just great. That feeling of just seeing yourself, wow. It was Sports Illustrated online, so you know, it wasn’t a print magazine, but who cares? I was like, wow, this is the first thing I’ve ever written seriously, and I love this, and I want to keep going.
And there’s a post-fight depression that hits people every fight. You kind feel, “wow, that’s over, what do I do next?” And whether you win or you lose, you kind of hit the post-fight blues. The post-fight career blues hit me pretty hard, and I went through a significant struggle with anxiety and depression, and writing was one of the things that was able to kind of shake me out of that a little bit. And a lot of really good medication. Never never write off medication. There’s some really helpful stuff out there.
And so my sister [Jenny]—she’s very very accomplished and she could tell that when I was living in Kansas I was kind of depressed—was like, “You know you’re smart, you know you wanted to go to law school, you wanted to go to graduate school, why don’t you work on studying for the GREs?” And so I did. I started studying for them. I ended up moving in with her and Colin [her husband] because wherever I go my sister always ends up having family members move in with her and mooch off her. She’s just so generous! And Colin, of course, is just the most amazing human. So, I lived with them for a little bit, and I brought my two cats and my dog along with their two cats and giant dogs. That was a really fun time.
But I did not realize—this is an interesting thing—like, I don’t want to get too crazy about my mental issues, but I had never been tested for ADHD. I don’t think I actually believed it was a real thing, but when I was in therapy kind of going through this depression period, the therapist said, “you might want to look into this.” And I was like, “Yeah, whatever but I don’t have that. You know, I understand people have that, but that just seems like the kid thing: to get drugs.”
It was just an odd kind of thing to realize that, oh, my focus is really off. Because I really thought I was studying my ass off for the GRE, and when I took it, I bombed. I got a 9% percent in the math, and I was like, “this is insane, I have to really buckle down.” I have to take another prep course. I have to do this and that. And Jenny said, “yeah, you know you need to put more time in studying for this if you’re serious about it, but there are a couple of universities that don’t require it. So why don’t you look into applying for those and kind of get in the practice of for applying places?” And I was like, oh well, the top schools and the ones that didn’t take GREs are Columbia and the University of Iowa. They don’t care about your GRE scores. So, I put in applications to both of those and they both called and accepted me. It was awesome. I don’t have to take the GRE. I don’t have to learn math! It’s great.
So was I kind of deciding between Columbia and the University of Iowa, and the University of Iowa had a “come visit” weekend, and I did and just, it’s so weird the things that get you to a place. They make you make up your mind with these little moments, when everybody seems nice.
I think the writing community is incredibly open-minded. Like, you think of writers as these like solitary creatures, right? But actually, like, half the writers I know are struggling with mental health issues.
Yeah! Well, I think everybody in America is to some extent right.
But writers are more open about it.
Yeah exactly. Like we’re just like, well, we know we have to deal with this because this is either blocking my work or helping my work or it’s something, you know, that I have to deal with.
I mean, I struggled with my class. I was the oldest one. I did not do any of the research that these very young ambitious other students did. I didn’t know who was who or what they wrote.
There was a woman who’d written a book called Thrown, and her name is Kerry Howley, and Thrown is actually about MMA. When I read it as a fighter, I was just like, “yeah, whatever,” because, again, I think it had to do a little bit with my lack of focus, but I guess I just care that much about reading about MMA while I was doing MMA. And I did reread it, and when it comes to—you should read it—like, it is so good. Because what she does, I mean, she does the thing with her voice where she creates herself as a character. It’s a nonfiction book about MMA, but she creates herself as character in it, and it’s incredible. And it’s funny as hell, too.
And I was put in a workshop my first semester with Kerry, the one who wrote that book, and the rest of my class—there was some administrative error, and they were all put in one workshop together—so they didn’t have the guidance, I think. You kind of need to blend workshops so you have more experienced students with the less experienced students so that the more experienced students can set the tone of, you know, just getting critiqued for the first time.
So, they were cutthroat. The people in my class. I thought everyone was so mean, except one of them who ended up being my best friend. He’s just amazing. He’s also my roommate. But now, you know, you go through these three years, and it’s so intense, and now I just love my classmates. Like I completely get where they’re coming from. They’re ambitious and they’re strong and they’re tough as hell. And it’s like wow, man, why didn’t they see all this at first? But it takes you a while to get there.
But it sounds like that’s actually kind of a comfortable environment for you, right? Because you’re with these ambitious fighters who are going to get what they want.
No! It’s massively uncomfortable. Because my mindset with fighting, of course, always was—and this isn’t something you have in academia—who would win if I punched you? Right? You can’t have that in the classroom setting. Like, the thing that got me through the really difficult times when I was like, “What the f*#@ are you talking about Heidegger for. I don’t care about German Nazi philosophers.” Like I seriously had to get one of those online listening courses to figure out who all the philosophy people were. I didn’t read the things everybody else read. I was so out of sync with everything they were doing, and, of course, and I don’t know if this is a female thing because men feel this, too, but that imposter syndrome. I was like, “Why am I here?” Like, this is not my world, these are not my people. They were just too different and they were also young, and then you do kind of adjust to it, and it’s like, well, you get to be proud of your own writing style even if it’s vastly different and about different topics than the people around you, and that I think that was a hard lesson to learn.
I think everybody learns that here. Their first few years are tough. And then all of a sudden you realize that no you were chosen for a reason. You do have a distinct voice, or you do have a way of writing that could do something, and it’s good.
And it’s really hard to get over that kind of imposter syndrome at first, especially when you’re among…a few in my class were published authors. They were really ambitious. They worked at places like Fox and BuzzFeed before they came to this program. Like, someone published a chapbook….It was really hard to think about myself being competitive with them. I would sit in class and imagine myself kicking everybody in the face and that’s how I would not drop out of the program.
Like “if we were in the ring, I could totally take you.” That’s really funny.
It’s like, “yeah, you may think you’re smart, but you little b#$&%, I could knock you the f*#@ up, so shut up.” It’s like you do have those coping mechanisms right?
I think that’s why some people act maybe super superior in conversations or whatever because that’s their insecurity. That’s their way of working through a really insecure moment when they’re not feeling great about themselves. They mock or they put on that fake goodwill, and it’s hard for me because I think there is something extraordinarily authentic about fighting, but it is also in a cage, right? It’s a contrived experience. I’m not actually at war. I’m not worried about killing somebody or them killing me in a cage.
It’s for money in a cage. There are rules and stuff like that. So, it’s close to being in a real or quote unquote “real” fight. But it’s also a fight where there’s a referee. Where my chances of actually dying in the cage are very slim. I mean it’s there. My chances of getting brain damage—you know I do worry about my brain. It’s probably been rattled one too many times.
What about your current work then? You’re writing a book, right? Tell us about that.
I am writing a book. It’s about me and my fight experiences and some of the things that I went through that I think are actually very typical of female fighters but that could have hampered and could have helped my career. And I’m not sure where they were. It’s kind of me working through maybe the emotional valence of fighting or my career. Just on Tuesday—so I’m still fresh from, you know, the trauma—of just submitting my thesis to the committee. So, I’m defending it April 2nd, and then after I defend it and I submit it to the university, I’m going to try and shop it as a book proposal.
So, I’m kind of at that stage where I’d really like people to see what I’m working on but I’m kind of not ready to yet. There’s a lot of things in there that I’m almost not ready for the world to see because they’re very personal. But at the same time, I’m talking about my mental issues, like, openly so you got to be open about something.
But you know there’s this whole part about, like, I fought in Russia and I pooped myself during that fight. Vladimir Putin was in attendance and he took all the winners back to his house. I said this—I was on the Joe Rogan podcast—they gave a version of the story, but the written version of the story is so different than the actual one I tell, because the written version I can talk about other circumstances in my life. But you know I try to keep those out of interviews, at least at the moment, but I pooped myself. I ended up at Vladimir Putin’s Palace in St. Petersburg, and I had, like, poop in my pants, and I had to get rid of my underwear and then shake hands with him and he didn’t have a trashcan so I shoved it behind the toilet and cleaned myself up and then like Berlusconi I was there, and this was 2007.
It’s just like I think about that woman, first of all, who was murdered, and who was going to testify against Berlusconi. And I’m like, “oh shit, maybe I shouldn’t write this!” But no, it’s a fun story, it’s a funny story. It’s a little bit tragic in a lot of ways, you know when the written version comes out, about other circumstances that were going on in my life at that time, but it’s just the surreal things that I went through in my life, like pooping myself in front of foreign dignitaries and having to deal with it and smile and you know carry on.
But it’s not hard for me to reveal personal things. But some personal things it is really hard for me to reveal. Like, I’ve been conditioned in a lot of ways not to talk about certain parts of my life and to make other ones that seem way too personal to talk about much louder. And so, it’s, I don’t know…it’s odd. With writing, I’m defenseless because I am actually saying things as I felt them not just said as, “oh, here’s a little story about this.” And I don’t know if that sells or not.
Like it could be that I have not gone through the gauntlet of being rejected for this, that, and the other thing, because I don’t submit that often, which I should. But I have that perfectionist thing where I have to be just right before I want to send anything.
Do you find that the writers that you’re with are also often perfectionists? I’ve always felt there’s kind of a gender gap. Actually, I feel like women are a little worse about it than men.
Yeah. I don’t know. The nice thing that happened to me is that Kerry Howley became my advisor, and she is such an amazing writer, such an amazing person. We have, like, kind of weirdly opposite personalities where she’s funny as hell and she’s really witty but she’s so sharp and I’m so all over the place and over the top. And she’s really insistent: “no, write about being a badass.” You know, she was really on me about that. And I’m hoping that…I don’t know. I didn’t see this in her—she’s super poised—but I have seen this thing in some women that we are hesitant take chances because we want it all to be just right because we are so used to being told about what’s wrong with everything we do. But people are always going to find what’s wrong with how you fight, how you write, how you do things….I think Kerry helped me see that you just have to be super, like…you just have to accept that you’re a badass. And so I try to with your blog or these interviews because yes, I am a badass.
Do you consider yourself a feminist?
I one-hundred percent consider myself a feminist, and, you know, it’s really funny. I have an IMDB page where there’s a quote on there saying I wouldn’t consider myself a feminist in the way that I hate men. And I don’t know when I said that or how that got said or how that got put on there, and I probably did say it. I said such ridiculous things. I got hit in the head, so I forget what I’ve said. I’m sure there’s so many lies that I’ve said because I was trying to protect somebody or do something, or you know like I had a straight intention in this interview.
Anyway, I’m being truthful with you! You know, I am a hundred percent feminist. And the more I learn about myself and learn about the ways women are really pushed down in this world and also the ways women are really strong in this world, I think feminism is an amazing thing…We get to call ourselves feminists at whatever stage we want to call ourselves feminists because in the end feminism is just about saying, “hey, I’m here. I’m at the table and I’m gonna get as much food as you. I’m going to get as much drink as you. And I’m not going to apologize for myself.”
And so yeah, I’m one-hundred percent feminist, and I make fun of men a lot on the Internet and they get really mad at me! But the truth is I don’t think men are worse than women or women are worse than men. But I’m a woman. And I don’t think it’s that binary. I think there are so many other categories and there are so many other things that should be considered in that. But at the end of the day, I think everybody should have as much as the person next to them.
I’m also a socialist. I think I misrepresent socialism in a sense because when I say socialism, I think about like…God, I know the Catholic Church has so many issues including huge sexist issues and just there’s so many things wrong with it. But I was raised in the Catholic Church. Faith is still something I’m trying to figure out right now…but at least the Catholic Church that I was raised in in America and the values that my parents gave me is that you look and you make sure the person next to you has as much as you. You know, sacrificing a little of what you have for somebody is not a sacrifice. It’s making sure you guys have equal footing.
And that’s kind of the kind of I guess the mentality I was raised with and that’s the values I have. It’s like if the guy next to me or girl next to me or person who doesn’t want to identify as guy or girl next to me is struggling and if there’s a way I can help them, why the f*#@ would not help them? Why would I hold back? Because I want to be the only person who can play with my own toys? You can be an individual and still….I don’t know. That’s where I am.
I mean, God, I have so many student loans to pay back and you know taxes are expensive, and this, that, and the other, but if it’s going to mean that somebody has clean water and a roof over their head for me to give up a little of what I have, I’ll f*#@ing do it. Like, that’s not that’s not a sacrifice. Making sure the person next to you is okay because someday they might have to make sure you’re okay. It just seems like a good way to live.
And honestly, I have to go back to my sister and Colin and my mother on this and just say that’s how we were raised. You just, you give the guestroom up to somebody. Jenny has always been that way with me and she’s always—anytime I’ve needed anything—and I’ve tried to do the same with her although she’s always mostly been more financially solvent than me because I’m a younger sister, so you know, but yeah, she’s always like, “no questions asked.” Give me money. Give me a roof over my head. Give me a bed until I’ve gotten back on my feet. And so, I’ve learned so much from her and her example with me, that it’s easy to have them mentality when you see good people doing it and it helps you. It’s like okay, great, what can I do for the guy next to me?
Shout out to Jenny and Colin. Jenny is Julie’s sister and Colin is a colleague of mine. That’s how we know each other. I think they’re both sort of ultimate feminists in some ways. They’re fantastic. They’re good good folk.
Okay, so how about this question: I think there’s like nothing sexier than power, but a lot of times when we’re thinking about it in the romance writing context it’s the guy that’s powerful. So, what do you to make yourself feel powerful when you’re working it…however you define that?
I guess if I am in a relationship with somebody, I think what makes me feel the most powerful is making them feel good but not at the expense of myself. And that’s something I’m still working on, but if I’m with a partner and they really need praise in one area and I’m able to give it, I don’t see why that’s a hard thing to do. It makes me feel powerful to make other people feel good sexually, as well as I think as long as you’re not compromising your safety or your own ability to feel sexually satisfied, you know that give and take, I think giving somebody what they would like in bed…I find that pretty powerful because it makes them feel good. If it’s somebody you care about—and again this is not that anything that would risk your health your safety or making you feel bad about yourself—then that does make me feel powerful. It feels good to make somebody else feel good.
Oh, that’s really interesting. People interpret this question in so many different ways. Like some people think about it as, like, working it as in an office or in the ring. I mean, it’s also interesting because, you know, from a non-female fighter perspective, I might have imagined myself doing something like you’ve actually done in your life to feel powerful but you’re talking about giving as the thing that makes you feel powerful?
Yeah, I think it is. The thing that makes me so powerful. I mean sex is also life…so giving to somebody, but not at the expense of hurting yourself. And I think that that’s something I’m struggling to come to terms with. And I think everybody, you know, especially women, and not just, like, cis women, it’s just, it’s something that we’re kind of…you know it’s weird. We are made to feel ashamed of being too sexual because then we’re slutty. But then we’re also made to feel ashamed of not being sexy enough. Because you’re not sexy enough so you’re not pleasing your partner enough by not…you know, it’s weird. You can’t be an exhibitionist, but at the same time they want to be proud of their wives. I don’t know. It’s weird. So, I think that the communication you can give to somebody, it just makes you feel good.
I love being a woman. I do find that actually in itself. I find it being very powerful being a woman. Maybe it’s because the only experience I’ve ever known. But the older I’m getting—I’m 38 and you know children and a family are things that I would love—but also the older I’m getting the more I realized that if I live by myself for the rest of my life it’s okay. Like, I’m living a very happy, very fortunate, you know I’m completely privileged. I’m a white woman in America. But like, I’m living a very good life for me despite the debt and despite the fact that I seem to never have a boyfriend.
I mean it’s okay. That’s not what I needed for my life. And when I do have a partner, it feels good to give to them and it feels good to take from them, too. I think we need to learn how to receive what people want to give us.
And if you eliminate partners who will not give you that, do not feel bad about it. Like, if I’m with somebody who is just absolutely not attending to my needs, not giving me what I need, cutting it off and not feeling bad about it or feeling sorry for them.
Like, “no, I told you what I needed, and you didn’t give it to me. I don’t feel an obligation to continue with this.” You know. Which is weird, but there’s that “oh, I feel so bad, I was so rude because I didn’t hit him back, but God he was such a jerk in bed!” Don’t feel bad about that!
I’m in a lot of therapy…
[Laughter!]
So, what would the romance hero have to be like to live up to you and the women that you admire?
Oh Lord. Well, you’d have to be funny. You should know yourself. You should be funny, and you know your partner. I think that the getting to know your partner should be a part of a heroine’s journey because that’s I think knowing yourself and knowing your partner become really vital kind of parts of the human experience. So, I guess I would like a romance heroine to be funny and human and relatable and, in some ways, not relatable so you can learn from her and dealing with actual hard things.
I also think that…there should be strong feminism in my opinion or just women who maybe battle with what that means or you know struggle with what that means? You know, to be a woman, to be proud of being a woman. But to have relationships with men not at the expense of themselves. Because I mean, that’s the fun fantasy, right? Feeling fulfilled. It’s a good thing. That’s what we all want. And I think that also it seems to me—and I don’t know this for a fact, I should really do more research to say something like this—but it seems like it’s a very white world, the romance world. From what I’ve read, romance favors the white experience—the white female experience more than anything else.
I think it would be amazing if we saw a romance novel about a trans person of color because even if it’s not a human experience that I’ve dealt with, it’s a human experience. Actually, I shouldn’t say human. I mean a personal experience I’ve dealt with. It’s still a human experience, just not my human experience, and I think there are just genres within romance that would be really wonderful and actually could really help people feel good about themselves or find something that they’re looking for.
It would be really interesting if there was a romance novel where a mainstream reader had to enter the mind of somebody with autism or somebody with special needs who saw the world differently. And I think that maybe these books are out there, and I haven’t read them yet. And so I should just shut up about it. But it seems like that would just be incredible. What if there was a romance heroine with Asperger’s. What would that do? Like what would her experience be like? And what would that do for women who are looking for romantic experiences who happen to just see the world under that lenses. You know, that’s the lens they were given to the world.
…And if you don’t mind me going off on my rant about this Fifty Shades of Grey book because personally, I love a good sex scene. Love it. But those books…they’re completely eating disorder books. Like, they are. Even their names…there’s somebody named Mia, there’s somebody named Anna. And it is catering to young women who hate their bodies, who have eating disorders….And it’s fantasy for them, and it’s harmful, I think, in a lot of ways. Or if not harmful, it’s predatory at least.
Well, I always hate to kind of criticize too much stuff when I’m also writing romance…but it is certainly true that in that kind of novel where somebody like a Christian Grey sort of stalks Anna and that’s considered sexy, there are some studies on that, and there’s some ugly truth out there about those books generally, but we all learn. So…there’s something that we got from that!
Yeah, I mean, some of the sex scenes with the s&m play, which can be really lovely or, you know, really satisfying, I think that having that out in the open was great.
Yeah yeah. You know, like opening a door for, like, for the kink community if they have some for somebody who can really give us like the consensual version.
Yeah. That’s true. That’s actually a really good point.
Is there any woman that you would like to brag about in particular? You’ve actually talked about a couple of different women but anyone you want to call out for being a badass?
Well, my sister, first and foremost. Jennifer Raff is just an insanely amazing woman. You know, she’s working on a book right now, she’s a double Ph.D., she runs a lab, she just got some huge award from her university, and she also is raising a kid. I mean, all of that, of course, you know, she’s got an incredible partner for that as well.
And I think my advisor Kerry Howley, is insanely talented and she writes about things that…I mean she’s writing a book about Reality Winner, the woman who is in jail right now for exposing a lot of really awful things that we needed exposed. She is just fearless; really takes on very difficult very important projects. So, I think Kerry is incredible.
The women in my program are great. M.K. Brake is a poet who’s graduating from my year, and I think she’s just incredible. She’s a really unique and original voice. And another classmate of mine, Aracely Mondragon. Just wail till you read her writing. It’s just so good. So these are some women that I really admire.
What advice would you give to another woman who wants to follow in your steps and become either a writer or I’m a fighter?
I think know your value. Just know your value and let yourself make mistakes. Let yourself learn from mistakes. If beating yourself up over mistakes is motivating, then don’t tell people to tell you not to. But if it gets in the way of you doing any work, then don’t do it. You know there’s, I guess there was value in when I would f*#@ up or lose during a fight. There’s a lot of value in me getting really angry about it wanting to fix it. But that’s not the mentality that can carry over into real life.
So, if I mess something up, yeah, I want to fix that, but I also have to know the motivation can’t be, “God, I’m going to do this a million times until I get it right.” It has to be a little bit more…not gentler but maybe more guided in the right direction. That’s something I’ve learned.
But you know, of course there are times when I don’t value myself. I’m a little bit too self-deprecating at times. I don’t know if I’ll ever get over that. But it’s definitely something that I get yelled at for in my writing. I mistake that for humor a lot. I guess because I know what I can make fun of myself about and I know what I can let other people…but it does decrease my value maybe at time as an author, and so it’s something I’m really working hard on, to find that line between humor and making myself look stupid. Because I don’t want to do that. I don’t think I’m stupid. I think I’m very smart. I think I’m a great writer. I think I’m a great fighter. And I’m a great commentator, so you know those forum people can suck it.
Being able to say, “I don’t think it’s just me.” I’m 38. It took me a while to be able to say, “hey, I’m great in bed” and if my partners aren’t with me that’s not because I was missing something. It’s because they found something that was more suited to them with somebody else…or they’re weak little bastards.
So, I guess know your value and appreciate it. Because I think every woman has a great story to tell. And if it’s up to her whether she wants to tell it or not, but every woman has a great story to tell. Not just in the sense of gender binaries but people who identify as women as well.
And I think we need to listen to each other. I think we shouldn’t be afraid to compete with each other but also to celebrate each other’s successes. I don’t think we should think that telling somebody they’re great at something means that we’re not.
Yes. Yeah. Yes. Because building somebody up does not mean that you can’t compete with them. It means that you want a better competitor.
Exactly. And in the fight world we would say this and I actually I know a lot of fighters meant it and I meant it sometimes too. You know, I want to fight this person. We’re competing. I want them to be at their best. That shows me how I am at my best. And if I beat them at something, and I beat them when they’re at their best, that means we’ve raised the bar. You know we’ve each improved, each done something great.
And so, taking shots at somebody when they’re down is just weak. It reflects your weakness, and you know, we all have weak times, but there’s no reason to broadcast other people’s. That would hurt somebody else. I guess, like, if you’re having a weak time you can talk about it and not talk about it, but I think making fun of somebody else at a weak time doesn’t do much for you. It just kind of shows how weak you are.
Anything else that you’d want to say about being a badass woman?
Embrace it. And if you don’t think you’re a badass woman, look again because you probably are. And if you don’t want to acknowledge you’re a badass woman, then find something good that you’re going to acknowledge about yourself, that makes you stand out and that makes you incredible. Because you know, I think maybe even the least of us or those of us who think the least of ourselves, there’s something about us that we’re proud of. And I think that’s what makes you badass. So, you don’t have to be a fighter in a cage to be a fighter. You don’t have to be a writer that’s published to be a writer. You can be all of these things and not have the professional distinction or that sort of thing.
Julie has so much energy, and she was a ton of fun to talk to. She made me think about how much all badasses have to be fighters. Since she’s also a writer, you can hear more from her. Follow Julie on twitter and instagram @julesk_fighter and watch for the book she’s working on to come out.
