Keti Shea
What have you been up to these last couple of months?
Well, you published one of my stories, “Mothers and Daughters”! I also had a guest post in Wild Roof Journal:
https://wildroofjournal.substack.com/p/a-day-in-the-life.
My first two novels are out for consideration with small press editors, so I took some time to finalize edits on my third novel, which I’m pitching to agents as Single White Female meets Mulholland Drive with a side of Otessa Moshfegh. It’s about two next-door neighbor women in a small mountain town in southern Colorado who are obsessed with true crime and begin spying on each other. I wanted to explore female envy, obsession, and disability as it relates to body image. I just got my first full manuscript request, so I’m (cautiously) pumped.
What are your long-term creative plans? Are you working on something big and secret or taking it day by day?
Ha, see above. My first two novels are quite firmly in the literary category in that they are voice-driven character studies with less emphasis on plot. I decided to try my hand at more “marketable” fiction in my third novel, a psychological suspense. For now, I’m focusing on revising my longform fiction until it’s as sharp as it can be. I’m taking a hiatus from short fiction, even though I have a running tab of story ideas clinking about in my skull. Occasionally, I do post short essays on my Substack.
What’s the status of your mental health these days? It’s in all ways prosaic to say that we live in trying times. How is the zeitgeist responsible? What are some actionable ways in which you’re taking steps to quiet the void, if any? (If it’s a glass of wine and an episode of Mad Men at the day’s end, that counts, please know that).
My life is in flux. I’m a career civil servant with the FDA and I’m anxious every day that I’ll lose my job. To say times are stressful sounds so inadequate; I have former colleagues from another government office telling me their hair is falling out from stress and they can’t sleep more than 3 hours a night. As an autistic (plus OCD) person with a history of trauma, uncertainty scares me. New things scare me. In some ways, though, I feel more clear-eyed than I’ve ever felt, as if my long dance with trauma has primed me for this moment.
My husband reminds me to stick to what calms me, so I’ll pass that on. I go to bed early each night, I get up early to write/read/do yoga, I eat whole foods, and drink lots of water. I reach out to friends when I need to get out of my own head. I control what I can and let go of what I can’t. I write a lot, even if it’s just for me and not for publication. I reread the books I read years ago and loved. And I spend a lot of time at my local public library because I’ve always found libraries soothing.
What is something you’d like readers to take away from your work in regards to mental health advocacy, discussion, or criticism?
Mental illness is less a reflection of individual pathology and more a reflection of how a society treats its most sensitive residents. By sensitive, I mean the ones who bear witness, the ones who can’t look away. Sensitivity isn’t a weakness, it’s a necessary component of society, and some of us bear a greater burden than others. I became fascinated with this concept as a girl after I read Lois Lowry’s The Giver, convincing myself that the reason I suffered so much was because I was feeling the collective pain so others wouldn’t have to.
Many people seem to liken mental illness to disability–like it’s this thing that other people have, and it doesn't apply to everyone. Sorry, no, anyone can become disabled at any time, and anyone can struggle with mental illness at any time. Most do and keep it hidden. I strive in all my writing to crack open a deeply personal experience in such a way that it feels universal.
Why do you create, still, despite the climate and political current and pervasive doubt we’re made slaves to?
It’s a compulsion. I struggle to communicate my thoughts at times, especially with difficult and hard-to-name experiences and emotions; on paper, words are neutralized. On paper, I have the illusion of control. Sometimes writing feels pointless in the face of the avalanche of catastrophic news, but then I remember that creating is more important than ever–it’s a form of testimony.
When was the last time you told your psychiatrist or therapist something you were afraid to disclose? In your own words, how do you feel about going up against the stigma?
I’m always afraid to disclose. My life has been so marred by trauma that I trained myself from a young age to keep my inner experiences to myself lest I become a burden to others. As a kid, I thought I was unlovable and unworthy of love. I made myself funny in the hopes I’d be tolerated despite my brain’s quirks. I’ve learned to let that go as I age. Trauma and suffering make us myopic; they convince us our suffering is unique and special and ours alone. In reality, I’ve found that to be false. Yes, writing against the stigma can feel uncomfortable, but in doing so, I’m reminded–in the flood of comments/notes/emails from readers–that something I wrote resonated. Shame can’t live in the light, and it’s likely that if something happened to you, it happened to someone else and that person may not have the words to describe it.
Anything else you’d like to share?
Build local community. Build mutual aid networks. Share your stories even if no one is reading them (at least one person will). Take care of your body. Safeguard your energy. Talk to your neighbors. Run for local office. Get a library card.
I briefly deactivated my Instagram account because of privacy concerns, but I’ve decided to keep it up, albeit with tighter privacy settings. If anyone wants to follow along with me or reach out for a collaboration, find me there!
(And if anyone knows of job opportunities for a skilled lawyer with 11 years of public health regulatory experience, please send them my way.)
Keti Shea is a neurodivergent lawyer and writer based in Northern Colorado. Her writing has been published in Reverie Mag, Swim Press, Oranges Journal, Inside Voice, Cosmorama, Nuthole Publishing, and Twenty Bellows. Her CNF essay, “Bad Dick,” which discusses social conditioning and rape culture, was recently nominated for Best of the Net. You can find her on Instagram and on Substack @ketishea.
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