aeron machattie, editor, publisher, lets plain wrap get to know her better. this is the fifty-fifth installment of plain wrap’s interview series in which plain wrap interviews all its facebook friends. thank you, aeron machattie.
1. Tell us about yourself?
1. I’m an editor/publisher living in Montreal. I work for The Void Magazine (www.thevoidmagazine.com) and Ribbon Pig (www.ribbonpig.ca).
2. Have you read any good books lately?
2. For the last few years I’ve been a full-time student in a program with a pretty intense reading list, so I’ve read a lot of wonderful books, but haven’t had much time for personal reading. Recently, though, I’ve been reading Jim Shepard’s short story collection, Like You’d Understand, Anyway, which I bought it for a dollar the last time I was in NY. I like his commitment to building the stories. They have a lot of convincing, quirky detail that makes reading them a really immersive experience.
3. Why did you leave your last job?
3. Most of the time I have several jobs that I kind of drift in and out of based on the time of year, the length of the project and my own schedule. The last job I outright quit was an awful job at a hardware store. I was a cashier and I had to wear steel soled/toed boots on a poured concrete floor. It gave me a lot of back pain and general unhappiness. I fell asleep standing up a few times. I quit because it was boring and didn’t pay very well and I found a better job that actually required skills.
4. What have you done to improve your knowledge in the last year?
4. Not enough. I feel like there’s a kind of apathy that comes with being a student that makes you feel like you’re learning a heroic amount in your classes and don’t need to do anything more. I’d like to learn more about growing food and maybe follow the news more closely.
5. Tell us about the most fun you have had in life?
5. One night when I was nine I was over at my friend’s house being babysat by her older brother. My brother was four at the time and my friend’s sister was seven. Needless to say he was having trouble keeping us all entertained. Around nine pm, when it was late enough to be dark, he took us all to a nearby golf course and set us loose. We spent a few hours chasing each other over the greens, every now and then ducking for cover from the headlights of golf carts into bushes and sand pits. We knew that there were probably secret police driving the carts, looking for kids to feed to their big, hungry dogs. It was the first time I felt like I was doing something wrong and liked it.
