You have to determine your ethical boundaries, and there aren’t clear right answers to that,” said Jolie.įor now, Jolie is continuing to work on some editing and teaching with a book deal under way. Things are okay now, but memoir and creative nonfiction require a lot of interpersonal work. Still, there were some tough feelings that swirled around in my family after it was out in the world. “I let almost every person who is mentioned at length in the book read a draft before it was published, to get their consent. Writing about personal experience can get difficult, especially when it comes to boundaries and Jolie has first-hand experience after writing this memoir. I started the intro to the memoir that summer, set it aside, didn’t get a job I thought I was going to get, then took it out again,” said Jolie. “Another (less devastating) root of the book is that I got a palm reading in New Orleans and the psychic told me that I needed to get serious about whatever creative endeavor I’d been abandoning.

After working in academia for years, she decided to write about her experience. Jolie’s memoir discusses the ways in which growing up in rural Ohio influenced Jolie into becoming who they are today. But because I grew up working class, I didn’t let myself daydream too much about a job that was so economically uncertain,” said Jolie. “I grew up thinking my future would involve writing I’ve been writing short stories, poems, and filling up journals since I was probably eight years old.

Jolie, who uses she/they pronouns, wrote Rust Belt Femme in 2020 but has been writing their whole life. 'synopsis' may belong to another edition of this title.On February 15, Raechel Anne Jolie will discuss their memoir, Rust Belt Femme, at 4:00 in FAC 189. Rust Belt Femme is the story of how these twin foundations―rural Ohio poverty and alternative 90s culture―made Raechel into who she is today: a queer femme with PTSD and a deep love of the Midwest. It was the early 90s, full of Nirvana songs and chokers, flannel shirts and cut-off jean shorts, lesbian witches and local coffee shops. Raechel escaped to the progressive suburbs of Cleveland Heights, leaving the tractors and ranch-style homes home in favor of a city with vintage marquees, music clubs, and people who talked about big ideas. Raechel and her mother struggled for money: they were evicted, went days without utilities, and took their trauma out on one another.

After her father came home from his third-shift job, took the garbage out to the curb and was hit by a drunk driver, her life changed. Raechel Anne Jolie’s early life in a working-class Cleveland exurb was full of race cars, Budweiser-drinking men covered in car grease, and the women who loved them.

Rust Belt Femme by Raechel Anne Jolie