Kathy Biehl
Since childhood, Kathy Biehl has scribbled down observations of human behavior and attempted to make sense of it. She gave up writing fiction long ago. A decades-long contributor to mainstream periodicals, Kathy gained national underground renown in the 1990s as the publisher, Editrix, and main voice of the social commentary zine Ladies’ Fetish & Taboo Society Compendium of Urban Anthropology.
She has co-authored or contributed to guides on legal Internet research, dining, and personal empowerment. Her anthology Eat, Drink & Be Wary: Cautionary Tales was shortlisted for the 2022 Eric Hoffer Award Grand Prize. Her writing has also won awards from the Association of Food Journalists, Houston Press Club, and Texas Bar Journal.
Marina Raydun: Confessions of a Third-Rate Goddess takes place in a world that feels very different from the polished image of adulthood we saw in 1990s pop culture. What made you want to revisit and document the version that was happening off-screen?
Kathy Biehl: I wrote most of this anthology in the 1990s while events were playing out. This is in keeping with my life long pattern of capturing real life moments, the stranger the better. I decided to revisit the 90s after assembling my first anthology, Eat, Drink & Be Wary. That project came about during COVID, which jettisoned previous norms for socializing and sharing meals. As I looked over my food writing, I realized it captured a world far different from what we were experiencing. That realization carried over into Confessions.
MR: Your essays feature an incredible cast of artists, performers, metaphysicians, churchgoers, and assorted eccentrics. Did you realize at the time how unusual your social circle was, or did that only become apparent in hindsight?
KB: Oh, I was acutely aware. The title is irresistible.
MR: What exactly qualifies someone to become a "Third-Rate Goddess"?
KB: It refers to goddess in the flesh, and the qualification comes from someone granting the status to you. A minister bestowed the title on me during a party (which I detail in the book). When I balked at the lower tier, he explained that a first-rate goddess would be Hera. A second-rate would be on the order of Persephone. Third-rate brings it to human scale. ( put it on a business card alongside other things people had actually called me, including Sheherazade of Weird • Pseudo Food Xpert • Pretentious Socialite)
MR: You've spent much of your life observing human behavior. What's the strangest thing you've learned about people that still holds true today?
KB: People do things and make choices against their own interests, no matter how much evidence they get against doing that. Many memoirists struggle with deciding what to leave out.
MR: Was there a story that was simply too bizarre for readers to believe?
KB: No; after all, one of the tag lines for my zine is "Nobody could make this stuff up." I did leave out one tale that was messier than I wanted to deal with at the time, about a nightclub visit that unrolled into coincidences that stretched back decades and across multiple state lines (I diagrammed them!), and that caused my companion to phone screaming afterwards when she realized the improbability of the worlds that had collided. Maybe in the next anthology...
MR: Looking back on the era covered in the book, what do you miss most—and what are you very happy to leave in the past?
KB: I miss the frenetic, chaotic and often cross-pollinating creativity. I do not miss the sexual ambivalence and the AIDS epidemic.
MR: If one chapter were adapted into a movie or television episode tomorrow, which would you choose and who would you cast as yourself?
KB: The Straits of Ambivalence: a cautionary tale about fan mail, with Rachel Bloom in the role of "should have known better" me.
MR: Is humor something you consciously bring to the page, or is that simply how you process life?
KB: It is both. I have actually burst out laughing during some of my most emotionally difficult motions. (Joni Mitchell got it right: "Laughing and crying, it's all the same release.")
MR: Your essays capture a moment when people met through communities, hobbies, performances, churches, and sheer coincidence. Do you think we've lost something in the age of apps and algorithms?
KB: Absolutely. I am witnessing a rebuilding of those kind of networks, though. The most dramatic example is a sporadic witch's night market in New Jersey that exploded on impact into a safe haven / playground for all manner of societal fringe dwellers. I have seen a line of cars stretching back a mile from the entrance gate as late as one hour before closing. My standing description is that it is the equivalent of ice cream dropped on a kitchen floor -- drawing ants that keep coming and coming and coming. It's clearly filling a not just a need but a hunger for community and socializing and being out in public in wildly self expressive garb, without fear of anyone judging or stopping or harming. (The witches that oversee this much have set up powerful wards; I've never seen trouble.) I expect more and more of these specialized communities to flourish.
MR: After all the adventures, mishaps, questionable decisions, and accidental goddesshood, what do you hope readers ultimately take away from your journey?
KB: There is no such thing as coincidence. Pay attention to details. They contain dots that often form patterns beyond anything your conscious mind could dream up. Also, as Mary Engelbreit put it years back: Life's too mysterious; don't take it serious.
To learn more about Kathy Biehl, check out the following:
Publisher website: 9thhouse.biz
YouTube: Words With Writers playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLV0BkpIsGof3TW3rWF4cg7bk6OmC_02fR
Readings from Eat, Drink & Be Wary: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLV0BkpIsGof3RP305VXP0rYS_ChY8DaJ9
IG: @kabiehl
Medium: https://medium.com/@kathybiehl