The Good Southern Women Interview with Julia Ridley Smith
On being deadly competent, sweatpants over pantyhose, playfulness and fatalism, and Mama 'n' 'em
GSW is a questionnaire-based interview series featured in F I E L D T R I P. It focuses on women-identifying artists of the South. This time, we feature writer Julia Ridley Smith.
Look, I already knew I loved Julia—her wit, her sensibility, her voice—but then I read her answers to my questions and loved her even more. Kindred spirit, for certain.
Julia hails from Greensboro, North Carolina, and teaches these days at UNC-CH (both of our alma mater!). She also teaches for The Porch from time to time (lucky us). She writes about her late parents (fascinating people!) and some place-based family history in her memoir, The Sum of Trifles, which I highly, highly recommend to anyone who’s dealing with cleaning out a family home or grieving the loss of family, etc. It’s funny and poignant and thought-provoking throughout.
Now she’s back with a debut short story collection, Sex Romp Gone Wrong, which continues on the themes of FUNNY and SMART, with a strong seasoning of SASSY. The third story, “Cleopatra’s Needle,” had me in tears. I’m still reading SRGW (I’m a slow reader and have had my attention spread across about five books lately for work reasons), and would absolutely love to have some of you Nashville folk join me in reading it so we can discuss it over stiff drinks on a patio somewhere, which is exactly how it should be enjoyed. Who’s in?
I met Julia at the Sewanee Writers Conference in 2012, and the beginnings of this friendship was, for me, the best thing about those two weeks (oops, did I say that out loud? Oh well). It is an absolute joy to see her books out in the world, and I’m honored to have her officially in the GSW fold. As I believe I told her a while back, she’s exactly the kind of individual this series was created for.
How does the South inform your artwork?
It’s commonly said that Southerners are rooted by a strong sense of place. Often that means being attached to a house or a particular landscape, but it’s also about being tangled in the familial and social webs tied to the places where you were raised. Any of these places or webs might keep a hold over one of my characters, even long after they’ve left or outgrown them.
Also, having lived in the South most of my life strongly influences my writing style—the marriage of high and low diction; the mixing of sarcasm, existential thoughts, lewd humor, and tenderness. To me, Southern storytelling and Southern talk are imbued with a sense of playfulness working alongside a dark fatalism. If you can’t laugh about the horrors and disappointments life is serving you, then you might collapse from despair.
Tell me about a Southern artist you identify with or admire, and why.
My friend Joanna Pearson is writing terrific fiction with a sinister edge. I loved her story collection Now You Know It All (which won the Drue Heinz Prize), and I’m eagerly awaiting her novel, Bright and Tender Dark, which is coming out this summer.
Growing up, how did you conform to Southern codes of femininity?
I was taught to be a lady—to make my manners, defer to my elders, and dress in a girly way when it was time to dress up. In polite conversation, a lady never brings up touchy subjects like race or money or class or sexuality. A lady’s job is to be cute and charming and uncomplaining on the surface and deadly competent and strong underneath.
Growing up, how did you push back against Southern codes of femininity?
I was lucky because my mother and father thought it more important for me to be smart and well educated than to be traditionally feminine. So I suppose being bookish was a push-back, not in my own household but out in the world. Also, I love to eat, I dance until I’m sweaty, and I’d rather wear sweatpants than pantyhose, so I was always too big and demonstrative and comfort-seeking to be super feminine in the traditional ways.
In what ways are you no longer Southern?
I don’t go to church anymore. I don’t eat pork products or drink sweet tea or smoke cigarettes or follow ACC basketball.
What is a specific place in the South where you feel at home?
My wonderful little neighborhood in my hometown of Greensboro, NC. Also, Chapel Hill, where I went to college, and where I teach now. And several beaches in North and South Carolina. All of those places feel like home to me because they’re where I’ve shared the best of times and the worst of times with people I love.
Tell me about a Southern expression that
a. You dislike
b. You love, or
c. That you’ve used in your work
I say y’all and all y’all and ain’t without thinking about it. I reckon I say a lot of Southern things, and don’t much notice them until a non-Southerner points them out.
I’m often “fixing to” do something. And I “might could” do it, too, if I just had more time.
I like “Mama ‘n’ ‘em,” which rhymes with “homonym.” As in “Mama ‘n’ ‘em are waiting for us at the restaurant so we better get on down there.”
I still say “Yes, ma’am” to older ladies, and now younger folks have started saying “yes, ma’am” to me, which was a bit startling at first, but I like that people are still teaching kids manners.
Everybody’s always going on about “Bless your heart” as a southern way to pretend you’re being nice when actually you’re being mean. But I’ve never been much on saying that. I’m more of a “kiss my grits” kind of person, but I don’t say that either. If I was really mad, I’d just say “Fuck you.” I tend to be rather direct, which both is and isn’t a Southern characteristic.
What do you like about living in the South?
People are generally friendly and laid back and like to joke around, even if they don’t know you. It doesn’t get too cold in the winter, and the heat in the summer gives you an excuse to be lazy, which I appreciate.
Share a memory of a time when you became particularly aware of some character of the South.
My strongest and earliest memory of meeting a Southern character is reading Eudora Welty’s “Why I Live at the PO” when I was around twelve years old. I was immediately taken by the voice of the narrator, Sister, and completely captivated by her family of eccentrics and misfits. They’re all so irritated by each other, but at the same time they can’t quit each other. That sounded like home to me.
Julia Ridley Smith’s website
Her Substack: Romps & Trifles
Buy The Sum of Trifles and Sex Romp Gone Wrong at Bookshop.org
Read her essay “Legs,” (also appears in The Sum of Trifles) and other short works
Follow her on Instagram @juliatrifles and on Twitter
Other Good Southern Women Q&As you might enjoy:
One Year of the Good Southern Women Interview Series
Love to see a fellow Greensboro, NC gal featured here! 👋