Writers & Readers: On letting go
An interview with writer Heather Radke on how even compliments can be complicated, Trojan Horse projects, and the desire for layered art.
Hello, hello,
One of the strangest sensations about publishing a book is that once it’s out in the world it almost feels separate from you.
When I pop into a bookstore and see it on the shelf, I feel like I’m looking at an old photograph. I remember the person who wrote the book. I remember where I wrote certain scenes or how it felt to be with the characters, but that’s what it feels like now—memories.
(It’s an interesting to talk about my book with those reading it for the first time—saying hello to the story—at the very moment I’m saying goodbye.)
In this interview with a friend, former classmate, and talented writer, Heather Radke, I felt relieved to know that I’m not the only one who’s felt this way. Time is strange when you’re a writer, and the things you learn from your first book—even after you let it go—sometimes follow you deep into the next one.
Before we dive in, here’s a little bit about Heather:
Heather Radke is a contributing Editor and Reporter at Radiolab. Her first book, Butts: A Backstory came out in November 2022 and was named a Best Book of the Year by Esquire, Time, and Publisher’s Weekly, and was one of Amazon’s Top 20 Books of the Year.
Before relocating to New York, Heather lived in Chicago where she worked at the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum. We met at Columbia University where she currently teaches creative writing.
She also has a substack newsletter called .
Hey Heather, I want to start with the same question I’ve been asking everyone. What have you learned about the writer-reader relationship since publishing your first book BUTTS: A BACKSTORY?
I thought a lot about audience when I wrote BUTTS. My idea for the book, fundamentally, was to try and talk about complicated ideas around race, bodies, and shame in a way that might engage a wide swath of readers.
I often say it is a Trojan Horse project. Readers might come to the book wanting to read about Baby Got Back or the science of running or even just because they think it's funny that there is a book that says “Butts” on the cover. But if I did my job right, then I’m also offering them a way to unpack why they have particular feelings, stereotypes, and associations with a wide variety of bodies. Hopefully, I’m also offering them a way to feel liberated from those feelings as well.
When you write a book, though, you really have to let it go once it's in the world. So much of the reaction to my book has been surprise. People are surprised that anyone wrote the book at all, that anyone took butts so seriously.
I still sometimes get a bit of a side-eye from certain kinds of literary people, or older people. And I definitely get inappropriate emails. I had imagined that the book could completely transcend this reaction -- that I could show people that everything in the world is full of wonder, history, and meaning. That was, of course, naive. People mostly still think butts are silly! And they are silly! But they are many other things, too.
But the best kind of reaction, the ones I really cherish, are from readers for whom the book did have that effect. I hear from women (and some men!) who tell me about how the book changed how they feel about their bodies or has helped them to question body ideals that they didn’t realize they’d absorbed. I realize now that it was for them I wrote this book, and I’m very grateful that they found it.
I love the idea of a Trojan Horse project and reaching people through what looks like one thing, but is actually many things at once!
Were there any particular things a reader said about BUTTS when it came out that stuck with you?
The book was generally well-reviewed, but there was a sense, I think, that it was a book that primarily offered up information. It was “well-researched” and “deeply reported.”
Those were descriptors I felt proud of, of course. I worked very hard to find the information that was in the book and write it in a way that felt engaging and meaningful. But, when I read those reviews, I also felt something else come into relief: I wanted it to be seen as artful, too. I wanted the book to have an emotional component. I wanted people to be moved by my butts book.
It’s funny you say that, because as someone who studied non-fiction and then ended up writing a novel I have a deep admiration for anyone who writes “well-researched” books like yours, like Olivia Liang’s, and so many others. So it’s interesting to see how this is both a compliment and also revealed something else….can you talk more about that?
This distinction between thinking and feeling, between learning and being moved, is something that I’ve now become very interested in. As a person who loves learning about new ideas and histories, I’ve begun to wonder how that information can be translated into a work that actually changes how people feel about themselves, or the world, or even just simply creates a feeling.
Fiction, film. Music -- these are all art forms that traffic primarily in emotions, and I think they are also art forms that are more likely to stick with you, change you, move you. As I begin to work on my next project, I’ve started to wonder how I can bring more of that sensibility into my nonfiction work.
I love that. It’s not necessarily blending genres, but learning and borrowing from them.
Speaking of different ways of connecting with, and reaching people. I wanted to ask you more about how your professional experience—in radio, teaching, etc.—has impacted the way you think about “audience”?
I think a lot about audience in each part of my professional life. As a teacher, It’s something I always try to evoke in the classroom.
I remind my students that they need to remember that they are writing for people, and that it’s important to think about who they want those people to be, and what those people need to know and feel in order to make decisions as a writer.
When I was a museum curator at the Jane Addams Hull-House, I thought about this a lot too. I wrote labels about art and history and always wanted to be thoughtful about bringing people into the museum experience. So often, museum labels assume knowledge based on who the writer perceives the audience to be. At the museum I worked at, I wanted labels to be informative and evocative for a wide range of visitors. I often thought about specific people—my mother, a student I had met on a tour, etc.—and made sure that the label I was writing would work for them.
It can be tempting, I think, to imagine that working on a project that will appeal to a broad audience is somehow “low” or “middle” brow. For a long time, I struggled with this. I had always wanted to be an artist, and had equated that notion with making work that couldn’t be understood, or wouldn’t appeal, to large audiences. But, I eventually realized that that idea was fundamentally misaligned with both my politics and my personality.
When I worked at the museum, we were very interested in interrogating who we assumed was part of our audience, and what the implications of those assumptions were. How could we make it a place that welcomed, and spoke to, as many people as possible?
This didn’t mean that we dumbed things down or made the art or the history “easy,” but it did mean that we interrogated our notions of “good” and “bad” taste and worked hard to expand them. I still try to do this now.
How can I make work that is meaningful, layered, and emotional, but also invites many people in? How can something have wide appeal and be rigorous and beautiful?
When I was in school, I always loved hearing what Heather had to say in class or outside of it. I like the way she thinks about the world, about art, about the process of making it. And I’ll be thinking about this interview, especially those last two questions, for a long time…
What are the questions that drive your work?
We have two more exciting interviews left in this series. See you next week,
Charlee