Top of the morning, bathmilk readers!
I’m trying this new thing where I reach out to someone I dearly admire and ask them 8 random and personal questions. The first person I thought of to test drive this segment of bathmilk, of course, was Kaylen Ralph: journalist, writer, co-editor, cook, reader, runner, fellow robe-wearer, wine in hander and fashion admirer.
I met Kaylen through my admiration of The Riveter, a longform print magazine she co-founded with Joana Demkiewicz in 2013. I interviewed her for The Wild Morning. She invited me to a delectable Sunday “going away brunch” before moving back to Chicago from Minneapolis. She ran around and talked with everyone, the most gallant host, proof that her bravery in writing spans her personality too. All coming off genuine and stick-to-your-ribs fulfilling, like a good Marcella Hazan tomato sauce. She showed me writing could be brave.
I’ve seen Kaylen change the mold of women’s voice in magazines with her brilliant op-eds and through her candlelit Instagram carousels, pasta press, beef maruchan and poetic captions.
Yes I do the cooking
Yes I do the cleaning
Yes I have a different notebook for every thought, project & feeling ✍🏻
I virtually introduce to you: Kaylen Ralph.
8 Random and Personal Questions with Journalist & Author Kaylen Ralph
You may recognize Kaylen Ralph from her bylines in Teen Vogue, Glamour, Elle, Refinery29, Literary Hub and Chicago Reader, among many others. Or, you know her from co-founding The Riveter, a gorgeous longform women’s print and digital magazine. She’s also the co-editor of New Stories We Tell: True Tales by America’s New Generation of Great Women Journalists, published by the Sager Group in 2019. She writes feverishly about politics, women’s issues and the performing arts. One of my favorite pieces by Kaylen, is her impeccably stunning work in Chicago Reader, an essay called Gown Girl.
As a writer myself, I adore Kaylen’s interpretation of the world and her ability to make big topics consumable in writing and reading. I think, in everything we do, we have a bundle of “north star” people that we look up to, a lit hallway of insights and human drive that help us, in our purest selves, get where we want to be.
The thing that you do, regularly, that’s hard as shit but worth it.
I regularly surprise myself, or allow myself to be surprised, which feels significant, because as a writer I like to be in control of the narrative, even of my own life. I also make fresh pasta pretty regularly, which is not easy but SO worth it.
Aside from being an incredibly insightful journalist, one that sorts through truths and research, in my mind, you’re a great writer because you have this uncanny ability to show versus tell, and explain life in a very real way. How long did it take you to find your niche in politics and culture? Even further, have you ever been self-conscious about your writing - that it looked different than other people’s?
I went to the University of Missouri to study journalism and my first beat on the student newspaper at Mizzou was covering student government. I was obsessed with the drama (and there was a lot of it), but I also took the responsibility of holding leadership accountable very seriously. That early on in my career, I was also grappling with the need to prove myself as a “serious” journalist, too, so covering government, even one that resembled glorified student council, felt important, or at least practice for what I deemed to be an important iteration of a journalism career at the time.
I added an English major during my junior year because I missed writing creatively, and I wasn’t prioritizing that type of writing for myself during my free time. Participating in writing workshops with my peers was my first exposure to personal essay writing and I absolutely fell in love with the form. I still wanted to be a journalist, but experimenting with essay-writing ultimately made me a better storyteller. I started reading (and writing) more longform, too.
Establishing my “niche” at the intersection of politics and culture is really just a natural confluence of my interests and the way that I interpret the world. I think the more “voicey” political writing that I’ve been able to do more of over the past year reflects my love of literature and the performing arts. Prior to COVID, I wrote a lot about theater for The Chicago Reader, and so much of politics right now feels like political theater. I’m also very lucky to work with editors who trust my news judgement. It’s a privilege to write op-eds, especially for Teen Vogue, and my goal is to make big, seemingly insurmountable topics accessible, to normalize pushing back on the status quo, and to hold leadership accountable regardless of party affiliation. I would be self-conscious if I didn’t root everything I write in fact.
Most people really underestimate...what?
I think I come across as really self-assured, both in my writing and in person, because in many respects I am. But as I’ve gotten older, and especially since turning 30 last year, I think I’ve realized how much my self-assuredness can act as a smokescreen to my vulnerabilities. I think people underestimate or miscalculate my softer side. I’m trying to get more comfortable leaning into my vulnerabilities and seeing those as strength, as well, both as a human in this world and in my writing, too.
What’s the biggest barrier for you in really being truthful to yourself: what you’re doing, feeling, thinking, writing?
Perfectionism as a form of procrastination. I have a really hard time starting projects because I preemptively fear that my end result won’t be perfect. Which is a really wild and not great way to exist. I LOVE the editing process in writing because it’s an opportunity for improvement. The stakes feel lower to me so I lean on my talent and my instinct more, and the end result is always really good. Not perfect, but really good.
Without writing my thoughts and observations down, I find it very difficult to understand what I think/believe. How do you use writing to understand yourself and the world around you?
This is a very good question that I don’t have a really good answer for. I suppose the opinion-editorials I write are my attempt at understanding and contextualizing my own frustrations in a way that I hope feels collective and cathartic. The biggest compliment I can receive on my writing of that nature is when someone tells me I’ve managed to articulate an emotion or instinct that they themselves were unable to put into words. In that sense, I supposed writing helps me understand how *we*—not I, per say—relate to each other and to the power structures that define our lives.
[Editor’s Note: I had to pull out that quote because I’m obsessed with it].
As for my personal writing, yeah—I’m usually using that outlet to navigate my emotional response in real time, which is why the editing process is so important to me!
My dream is to be a screenwriter, or (fine!!) a singer. And it seems like a big part of us wishes we were exquisite inside of another craft aside from our own. Who or what craft are you jealous of that leads an entirely different life than you have now?
The really obnoxious thing about me is that I am actively pursuing all writerly crafts at once. I have a screenplay, novel, multiple essays and feature stories always in progress. Sometimes after a few glasses of wine I write poems about items you might find on a charcuterie platter. I love fashion (sorry not!!!) and my day job includes personal styling. There are definitely some days where I daydream about being a stylist and only a stylist, but if that were the case, I’d wish I were a writer.
My only true, unadulterated hobby is cooking. No one pays me to cook.
Your personal essay, Gown Girl, published in Chicago Reader, stunned me in the most gorgeous way. You write, “In the aftermath of my breakup, what had always felt like a benevolent, underlying ‘me versus them’ dynamic of stylist versus client became suddenly personal. A bride-to-be's very presence in my store necessitated she have something I did not, something I assumed I should—and would—have by now.” When I read this, I instantly thought of Gwyneth Paltrow's 1998 film “Sliding Doors” (still holds up 20 years later). Gown Girl was a sliding door moment; two things could have gone different ways depending on your decision to stay or go from a relationship. Have you ever wondered what would have happened if your life had gone differently? Most importantly, what wisdom does this alternate version of yourself have to offer? If you could meet the person that would have stuck with that path - what would they find to love about your life now?
Wow I love this question, and I need to watch that movie because references to it keep popping up in my life. I hear you, Gwyneth!
But yeah, ok, here I go: when I was in the relationship that inspired “Gown Girl,” I never expected it to end. And when it did, the shock of the breakup itself was initially all I had the capacity for considering. I spent a lot of time trying to understand the forensics of it all, thinking there were specific clues that I could lay out on the table, side by side and end to end, in order to solve this big, nebulous conundrum of why we didn’t work out. In retrospect, the answer to all of those questions is really obvious: we ultimately weren’t right for each other, so we were unhappy. That’s it.
In the sliding door, alternate ending of this big, unoriginal event of my breakup, the one where me and my ex are still together...well shit: I probably wouldn’t be answering these questions. I wouldn’t have written “Gown Girl,” which means I wouldn’t have written several subsequent pieces I’m proud of, too. There would still be a giant TV in the nook of my home where I now have a library. Maybe the White Sox would have won the 2019 World Series? Maybe I’d never have made Marcella Hazan’s tomato sauce with butter. Maybe I would have a baby. Or maybe I’d be in jail. We’re kind of talking butterfly effect, right? So it’s really hard to say. In the alternate reality, I’m sure a lot about life feels the same as it does right now because it’s my own life, after all.
My capacity for joy and love is so fucking huge these days. I’m really thankful for that. I’ve shirked all self-imposed limitations and I have shattered every single mold I kept in my closet during our relationship. I keep surprising myself, like I said, and that’s been really hard, yes, but it’s also been really fun. I’m having a really, really fun time with my life, and it feels deliberate, too. I think my writing reflects that. I feel lucky to be just getting started with all of these lessons and that perspective in tow.
Let’s end with a banger: Regret. A fair teacher or not worthwhile?
The fairest teacher of all. In my experience, regret begets empathy, encourages growth, and suggests humility. Regret has made me softer—not in a bad way—by asking me to be more honest with myself about who I am, who I’ve been and what I’ve done, and where I’d like to end up.
1. Especially after daylight savings, the term “revenge bedtime.” It’s a phrase used for people that stay up late to do stuff that doesn’t really matter, to recapture time to do leisure activities stolen by work and chores.
2. I wrote this little thing in Wit & Delight recently about working from home. It’s a detailed diary of sorts and, while I know I’m really privileged to actively work-from-home, I really enjoyed writing it.
3. For some reason, Mariah Carey’s version of Def Leopard’s “Bringin’ on The Heartbreak.”
4. If this is true…
5. If you don’t know what to do with your pandemic grief, “We Have to Grieve Our Last Good Days” by Julie Beck is a good essay.
6. I asked my Instagram followers to tell me the weird suggestions Instagram served them in their search boxes. One of them was, famously, paint pouring. A few of us deeply questioned it, then fell down a YouTube rabbit hole of acrylic pouring techniques paired with classical music. And…it’s good.
7. “Are You Ready to be Touched” by Allison P. Davis in The Cut.
8. The most tender thing on the pandemic internet this week.
9. Another self plug! This piece I wrote for Artful Living Magazine about how Kikkoman soy sauce changed an entire town. It’s a powerful reminder we’re all more alike than different and coexisting cultures can make the world a very tasteful place.
10. A really wonderful listen. Krista, for the On Being podcast, interviewed the wise and wonderful writer Ocean Vuong in a joyful, crowded room full of podcasters in Brooklyn (March 8, 2020). The unedited version.
Well, we’re taught, particularly in elementary school, to learn a standardized language. And when you ask, why is it this way, why is this the standard, you arrive at a very arbitrary answer, and an answer which actually excludes, often, people of color: “Your English is wrong. This English is right.” But, in fact, language is always changing. And I think it’s the poets, the writers, and even the youth — they’re using language to cast new meaning, in the same way Chaucer just winged English spelling. There was no standardized spelling.
11. “How Billionaires See Themselves” in Current Affairs. My first take from this is that we all need books that billionaires wrote, because they write them. All books a desperate act to “be good.” We were talking about the rich people mindset at a brewery yesterday and this article is great at articulating that.
12. A slow nod to this tweet:
13. “The future of L.A. is here. Robin D.G. Kelley’s radical imagination shows us the way” in the Los Angeles Times. Journalist to historian; certainly an interview to think about.