MLA Chernoff

Chaotic writing space featuring some nice doom piles (ADHD term––of endearment), a lot of oui’d, and fidget spinner decor.
On my monitor, you can see me simultaneously working on this interview and grinding through tickets at my Zendeskified customer service job.
Jerry is perfectly positioned on my monitor stand––they are facing me so we can make eye contact and really just get lost in the windows of our respective souls.
As you can see, my ergonomic chair is clocked in and reporting for duty. And finally, there’s a Deskcycle hiding in the shadows. I use it 12 hours a day so my legs and ass get painfully swole. I wanna look like the 1958 yearbook photo of Anthony “Tony” Fauci, mid-dribble, playing what appears to be a losing basketball game.

What do you feel is your best piece of work?

I think that I did a really good job of box stepping and prancing around the cafeteria stage during a high school production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour So-and-So. I also really love the pome “13 Egrets Sitting on a 5G Tower (Virtue Signaling)” which was published by Peach Magazine in a 2021 yearbook-style print publication––the title alone sends me and I am very proud of it. It will be included in a manuscript I just completed entitled WEAK SCATOLOGIES. Currently looking for a publisher to help me scat my logos into the world and out of my own weaknesses!!

What music have you been listening to lately?

The entire pandemic I have simply been too depressed to care about music that I don’t already feel entirely familiar with––I listen to Guided by Voices and Robert Pollard projects on repeat incessantly. It’s disgusting, really. Pathological. I’m currently obsessed with the song “Science Magazine” by Robert Pollard––off an album called Mouseman Cloud (lmao)––because the title alone sends me and I’m sure he is very proud of it. Truly the silliest nonsense lyrics I have ever heard. But they all make perfect sense to me. It’s delicious, really.

What’s in your fridge right now?

Lactose-free cheese, lactose-free yogurt, oat milk, a giant thing of sweet potato slop. Eggs long past their “Best Before” date. Soggy leftover fried chicken bao from five minutes ago. You know––the good stuff.

Who is the last character you related to and why?

Tyler Durden, the Joker, the sleeper agents from Operation Gladio (google it), Hannah Horvath, Ted Kaczynski, Taxi Driver, Buster and Lucille, the Marx Brothers, the catcher (bottom) from Catcher in the Rye, Jacques Lacan as a blackpilled incel (protagonist from a novel I’ve just decided to write), and the celebrity who wrote “Dear President Putin” because I refuse to believe she’s real.

Have you ever failed at something you care about?

No

Last gift you received?

My partner gave me a hamster-shaped Beanie Baby with a Minions face. The Minion hamster is smirking because they know how cool they look donning their little bucket hat, pink sunglasses, fanny pack, and belt that doubles as a cupholder. They look so good. Too good to be true, but I swear to god it’s real. Their name is Jerry and I have their birth certificate––I’ll post proof or you can ban me from the Nothing/In Particular subreddit.

Favourite photo you’ve taken?

I took a lot of nudes during the hornyscared phase of the pandemic––I’m supermega stoked on all of them.

Best season?

Nuclear Winter, Mauve Spring

Least favourite household chore?

Cleaning the tub, making my bed, being myself, and having fun.

Best outfit you’ve ever worn?

I had a generic red sports jersey with the number “07” on it with lots of mesh and you could see my nipples through it. With this, I wore my Joe Boxer brand jeans which included a stitched-on patch of a large angry bulldog on a chain leash and the chain was a real chain that would hang off my little leg and make dingle-dangle noises everywhere I went. This was in 5th grade i.e. in the wake of 9/11. I’d absolutely wear that outfit today.

Do you like to write in the morning or at night?

I don’t write. I just wake up in the middle of the night after a bad dream and sit on my keyboard, which isn’t very ergonomic (for my ass). The next morning I edit the gibberish my ass composed. I’m giving OuLiPo, love. Coffee’s on the counter.

What do you consider to be your first rejection?

December 28th, 1991, I was born at Women’s College Hospital.

Latest book you’ve read or favourite book ever?

This is the part where I list books by my friends so that people are aware of them and read them because they are good books which are also very recent, very fresh, very favey:

its th sailors life / still in treatment by bill bissett
Sample Platter by Vannessa Barnier
Autotheory as Feminist Practice in Art, Writing, and Criticism by Lauren Fournier
Once More with Feeling by Sophie McCreesh
Me, You, Then Snow Khashayar “Kess” Mohammadi
everything that Fawn Parker has published
Language in Hues by Eric Schmaltz,
Leavings by Kate Siklos

Favey book ever? Definitely [redacted]! Really into Garielle Lutz lately, too.

Anything you’d like to promote?

Yes, you can purchase [SQUELCH PROCEDURES] here. By clicking this. THIS.

SCRIED FUNDAMENTS is also available now––you can order it here but I have soooooooo many author copies that I need to sell. I can deliver it to you personally and personably if you are in Toronto.

Liz Harmer

Jowita Bydlowska