Author Interview: Iris Jamahl Dunkle

Rescuer of Lost Women and Girls

What do you think caused you, in particular, to become Sanora Babb’s chronicler—and at this particular inflection point in time?

I have never been someone to listen to the authorities. I was raised by hippies and from a young age, I questioned the history I was taught. It never seemed to tell the full story. Perhaps that’s why when I heard Sanora Babb’s story, I was drawn to it. I first learned about her through Ken Burns’ documentary, The Dust Bowl, where he includes an extensive segment about Sanora Babb and her novel, Whose Names Are Unknown. I’d just finished writing my last biography, Charmian Kittredge London: Trailblazer, Author, Adventurer and so I was on the lookout for another subject to write about. When I read her novel, and saw how much more it humanized the victims of the Dust Bowl, I knew I had to write about her. 

In what ways do you, as a writer and a woman, identify with your subject? In what ways was she completely different from you?

No matter how hard life got, Sanora Babb never gave up and she never let other people tell her story for her. I can only hope to live up to her fortitude. Although, given the election results, I feel a new, and even stronger commitment to my work of bringing back women’s voices.

Are any of the conflicting demands she experienced—as a writer, a family member, a spouse—still in force, do you think, for women writing today? Do you think it’s still hard for a woman to dedicate herself to Art?

Yes. She didn’t have children because she knew having children would have made it nearly impossible for her to write. She had a sister who had mental health issues and depended on her. She had a famous husband [Academy Award-winning cinematographer James Wong Howe, 1899-1976] who did not take her career seriously until she published her first book in 1958, when she was 51 years old.

In our society, and in so many societies before us, women are constantly being told that they do not deserve the space to make art. I mean, Virginia Woolf was writing about it in 1929 in A Room of One’s Own. Yet women still struggle to get the time and mental space to write.

I know you have two sons. What would you tell a daughter, if you had one, about this subject—about love and art, duty and ambition?

I would tell her the same thing I tell my students. The same thing I would like to tell my young self if I could talk to her. You have to believe in yourself. You are worth investing in. Take yourself seriously. Don’t compromise. Pursue what you believe in.

Your literary expertise spans so many genres: you’re esteemed as a poet, a two-time biographer now, and a scholar and teacher with a doctorate in American Literature. (I love what Ross Gay—a poet I greatly admire!—said in his jacket quote describing your work in your 2012 collection, Gold Passage: “a big human heart trying to make some sense of the unknowable world.”) I also happen to know that you’re a formidable athlete, a body-builder who can power-lift, how much weight? And you’re also really pretty, if you’ll excuse my bringing up something so relatively superficial—but, still, such things have enormous influence on a woman’s life. Sanora Babb’s beauty, I think, had a big and perhaps not always a positive influence on her life as a writer. Do you think she might have achieved more as a writer—or embraced her identity as a writer more fully—if she hadn’t been movie-star gorgeous?

I try very hard to not make my subjects’ beauty and sex lives the focal point of their stories. Too often women get boiled down to stories about who they slept with. When I was on tour for my book on Charmian Kittredge London, all everyone ever wanted to hear about was about the three-week affair she had with Harry Houdini. I think that focus is just part of the male gaze, and it obscures the more important aspects of these women’s lives.

Have your multifaceted achievements have ever inspired jealousy or resentment in your friends and family?

Not that I know of.

This is a related question: Are you finding it at all difficult to deal with your suddenly very large literary success? As a poet—even as a Poet Laureate of Sonoma County who has won many other honors—you’ve probably grown used to the very hard road, filled with self-doubt and rejection, that nearly every poet who’s ever lived has had to travel. Are you able to fully embrace your success now—and enjoy it without reservation? I know that I have a “not good enough” tape-loop that plays in my head, no matter what I manage to achieve as a writer. The glow of the accolades is short-lived. Accolades are an addictive drug: we always crave more—bigger doses and an even more amazing high. Are you immune to this, Iris? I’d love to hear your thoughts.  

No. I’m not finding it difficult. I worked my whole life to get here. And now that I’m fighting for the voices of people other than myself—now that I’m fighting for Sanora Babb and all the other women whose voices I’m trying to bring back—it’s wonderful to have a larger platform on which to do my work.

How did you connect with Laura Mazer, the agent of record for Riding Like the Wind? Did you find her or did she find you? Is this the first book of yours she has repped?

Yes. This is my first book with Laura. She’s wonderful to work with. I found her through a long, hard process of sending out emails to potential agents so that I could try and place my book on Sanora. Laura was one of the few agents who seemed genuinely interested in the project. I’m so grateful to get to work with her.

Do you work in all your genres at the same time—can you write poetry while you’re engaged in research or engaged in a long-term book project of writing prose? I’ve found that I’m much less apt to write poetry while I’m writing a novel—which, of course, can last over a period of many years. It seems like different parts of the brain are engaged, and there’s either not much cross-over or else crossing over from one genre to the other feels disruptive. Do you ever feel your “poet’s brain” to be at odds with (or a stranger to) your “scholar’s brain”?

I usually work on my poetry between projects. My biography of Charmian Kittredge London actually began as a series of lyric poems written in response to Charmian’s brilliant diaries written aboard the Dirigo—a three-masted schooner she and Jack sailed on from Baltimore [around Cape Horn] to Seattle. The diaries were so intriguing, I couldn’t believe they hadn’t ever been published before. So I did a poem-a-day project where I wrote poetry about the diaries (some of these poems would eventually make it into my collection, West : Fire : Archive). But those diaries also revealed that Charmian had helped her husband write one of his books, The Valley of the Moon, and had never been given credit for her work. The more research I did into Charmian’s life, the more I wanted to learn and spread what I learned to a larger audience—and so that’s why I started writing a biography about her. When it came to Sanora Babb, I started off by writing a biography about her. But as I was doing that work, I couldn’t help thinking about my grandmother’s story. How she, too, had survived the Dust Bowl and how The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck had not been representative of her story. So, I picked up his book, and started an erasure project. I crossed out his words to make room for my own, and wrote poems from the letters I found in his book. It was a cathartic experience and really gave me permission to “take on” Steinbeck!

Have you ever written (or thought about writing) a novel? I’ll wager that you’ve at least written some short stories and maybe a novel, too, during the course of your career. Is there a novel in your future—maybe a screenplay? (Maybe you’re already working on one based on the life of Sanora Babb! Maybe Ken Burns has suggested you write one?) What do you see for yourself down the road?

I have written a novel! It’s about Pithole, PA, an old oil-boom town in Western Pennsylvania that, legend has it, only survived for 500 days. There were girls there who were tricked into becoming prostitutes. I wrote a book—not yet published, but I’m hoping—about getting those girls out of Pithole.

Iris Jamahl Dunkle: author photo by Teresa Sawyer

Click here to read more about Iris Jamahl Dunkle and her latest book, which is receiving widespread and well-deserved rave reviews everywhere!

This is a dark time, everyone—I know, I know! Our greatest hope, I’m quite convinced, is to love and care about one another. Writing and reading has been saving me every day since the election. Hold your loved ones close! Hug a poet!