INTERVIEW WITH UK WRITER OLI COURT

Misery Tourism, COVID-19, Brexit, ambient music, stand-up comedy

How did you hear about Misery Tourism? How many times have you been published there? And then how did you hear about Misery Loves Company?

I was trawling through various lit mags, trying to find writing that spoke to me, that I could feel comfortable submitting my own work to. I figured out that a good way of discovering lit mags was to search the names listed in an author bio, and I don't know what piece of his I read, but Mark Wilson (@toadswiback) had named Misery Tourism in one of his and straight away that sounded like the kind of place I'd vibe with. I'd had a couple of pieces accepted here and there before coming across Misery Tourism, but never really found a 'home' for my writing. After reading Mark's 'disney cruise 657' and then Sara Corris' 'White Fuyurei', I knew I'd hit the vein of gold within the vast mine that is the online literary world.

I've been published twice by Misery Tourism - 'The National Normal' and 'I Could Take a Point Off Serena Williams', the latter under the name of the narrator 'Nev Sacramento', because I had a bout of paranoia that the ending could be misconstrued as anti-establishment propaganda, and that The Men would come and get me for trying to incite criminal activity or something. I probably didn't need to worry.

I knew about Misery Loves Company from following MT on Twitter, seeing the Zoom links get posted and the hive of activity in the thread underneath. It looked like a great chance to actually meet the writers whose work I was reading and enjoying, but time zones and the intimidation factor of jumping into a random zoom call with two dozen anarchic strangers kept putting me off until after I'd had The National Normal accepted by Will and Rudy, which I suppose gave me enough courage to jump right into the den of iniquity.

There has been some talk on the part of the editors and hosts of MLC of possibly starting a different scheduling slot at times for European people interested in MLC who don’t want to stay up until the fucking wee hours of the morning. Would you be interested in that? Can you provide perhaps an anecdotal opinion on the time differences between our countries and how that impacts communication and community in the literary field?

I'd definitely be interested in a European MLC, let's give it a go. Pretty much the entire internet is filtered through an American lens, and I feel like 'alternative' storytelling is kind of naturally American in style, so it makes sense for the community to be dominated by North Americans. But it can leave people out of the timezone feeling like they're missing out on the rhythm of the 'scene', such as it is. MLC has turned into this social occasion where all the disparate communication of social media suddenly becomes more immediate, and we can get that feedback and inspiration that is harder to find in text only, so if it takes even a small personal sacrifice every time you want to attend, it's not ideal at all for the European writer. The community feeling is there the way things are currently, but I feel I and other Europeans could definitely cement ourselves further with that kind of regular opportunity to meet up and exchange work.

What writers do you feel have influenced you? And when did you start writing seriously? What are you reading currently?

My biggest influences up until recently are all British comedy writers. As a teenager, I was obsessed with Charlie Brooker's 'Screen Burn' columns in the Guardian. Just the rhythms of his analogies, being able to eviscerate a Big Brother contestant with bizarre descriptions of their appearance, that pretty much defined my humour and early attempts at developing a personality. Then Chris Morris and everything he's ever made. I was drawn to his playful use of language and approaching taboo subjects with pure silliness but also incisive mockery of people abusing power. And also Limmy, who is similarly able to take human misery and play around with it in a really affirming way.

So I always tried to write sketches and sitcom scripts, but they never really came out right and I never applied myself to them. That changed in 2019, when after a few major life changes, I sat myself down and forced myself to write these comic monologues, which eventually developed into a character stand-up act, which I performed for a bit before COVID hit and knocked me back again. In 2020, without any gigs to go to, I decided to switch tracks and write a novel, and turn some of my monologues into more 'literary' short stories. That's when I discovered the whole lit mag submission culture, and it's what feels like the natural place for my writing at the moment, although I am looking to get back into the stand-up too.

My literary influences are pretty much all American, and all quite recently discovered. It's actually quite embarrassing to consider how little I read pre-2019! I'm kind of split between the minimalist worlds of Raymond Carver and Chuck Palahniuk, and the free spirit, manic writing of Hunter S. Thompson, Craig Finn's lyrics for The Hold Steady, of course Kerouac too. The minimalist stuff can come across as cringy at times and Palahniuk could have definitely dialled back his quirks, but in terms of learning how to write and removing the bad habits any beginner writer has, those guys were and are crucial for my actual process. Now, I'm just trying to soak up everything and anything - I've never felt as creatively engrossed as I do right now. Unity's writing was revelatory for me and I'm learning so much about character voice from reading them. And a friend of mine, Becca Fang, her creativity is on another level and I'm learning loads about crafting more poetic phrases and imagery from her - you can read her stuff on her Instagram (@becca.fang) but her writing will be everywhere soon enough.

Currently I'm reading Letters to Gil by Malik Al Nasir, The Fran Lebowitz Reader, and A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole.

Do you have other creative hobbies? I’ve seen on your twitter feed that you have a thing for stand up comedy and DJing ambient music. How is that going in the pandemic? Recommend some music to me that is important to you, top five tracks, that kind of thing.

Stand-up is something I'm looking to dive into again in 2022. My previous act was character-based, but I'd love to do it as myself, too. It's pure performance, engaging with a live audience like that, and I love the electricity that runs through your body when you get up there. That's your body telling you that this is how it's supposed to be, that this is the natural forum for storytelling. It's also a legit route to using my writing to make at least a partial living.

Since moving recently, I stopped doing the ambient radio show, but it's still very important to me - Brian Eno is possibly my biggest creative influence of all! 'Ambient' is a very broad church and there's lots of crossover with other genres, like downtempo, neoclassical, electronica, but to me, if it feels like it's ambient, then it's ambient. So here are five ambient albums I'd recommend that go beyond what you'll find quickly via youtube algorithm:

Roedelius - Selbstportrait II

Faten Kanaan - A Mythology of Circles

Secede - Tryshasla

Piotr Kurek - Edena

Tom Rogerson with Brian Eno - Finding Shore

Describe what is happening in the UK right now for people like myself who are puzzled enough at my own country let alone a foreign one. Was your story The National Normal influenced by any particular political or cultural trend in the UK that you would like to talk about? Can you explain Brexit to me? What I know is that it was a controversial decision to leave the EU and it has had many economic and political cascade effects that for some citizens seem to have been unforeseen while for others they were catastrophes that everybody should have known were coming. Is that a fair description? Do you have a differing view, one more nuanced perhaps?

The National Normal was heavily influenced by our response to COVID, both from the Conservative government and the people in general. When COVID first hit, the government decided to essentially ignore it, and attempt herd immunity. They decided that on a Friday afternoon, and then by the time Monday morning rolled around the situation had already dramatically worsened, and they had to enforce a lockdown. From there, the government really leaned in hard to the 'wartime' messages, like using the NHS and its workers as a tool to make themselves look benevolent. We had this 'Clap for the NHS' thing during that first lockdown, where everyone who was voting to cut funding to the NHS, privatising elements of it and freezing workers' pay, suddenly were making a big show of supporting these workers who were risking their health in COVID-infested hospitals, and in doing so making themselves look all rather virtuous in front of their neighbours. This lasted about ten weeks, after which everyone got bored of caring about the NHS and went back to the pub, pre-vaccine rollout, and we had another wave of cases causing two more lockdowns, during which we did not clap for the NHS. Then finally, in spring/summer 2021, we were getting a wide vaccine rollout and things generally were 'getting back to normal'. England made a run to the final of the Euros, and there were loads of parties/riots in aid of that. But I was still very uneasy about 'returning to normal' and certainly didn't share the view that it was all over. So The National Normal is infused with those contradictory messages of 'We Shall Fight Them On the Beaches' and 'Keep Calm and Carry On' - messages which British society operates beneath and which have very much come to the fore during COVID. We're in crisis when it behoves the government for us to be in crisis, but also nothing is wrong and nothing ever was wrong, keep spending your money, you peon.

And where do I even start with Brexit? I suppose the most important thing to know is that basically nobody in Britain knows what the EU actually is or how it affected us here. The referendum on it occurred primarily because there was a groundswell in anti-immigration views after the financial collapse of 2008, which found a charismatic face to represent it in the form of Nigel Farage, the then leader of UKIP. UKIP became a major 'pressure party' and threatened to syphon off right-wing voters from the Conservatives in the 2015 General Election, so David Cameron, the Prime Minister and Conservative Leader at the time, promised a Brexit referendum to try to satisfy Conservative voters who were considering jumping to UKIP. Referendums had become a really popular tool for UK Governments because they're a good way for elected decision-makers to pass blame to the public for making said decisions, while also appearing to be more directly democratic. Win-win for the Government. And every referendum prior to Brexit had the 'correct' outcome - essentially the public had decided what the Government had wanted them to decide, just adding that extra touch of legitimacy to a potentially controversial decision the Government already wanted to make. Cameron was gambling that the public wouldn't want to make such a dramatic change as leaving the EU, that he could placate the xenophobes and retain his voters. Unfortunately for Cameron, Farage had really mobilised support for Brexit, the 'change' was presented as a positive over 'keeping everything rubbish like it is now', and what pushed the 52/48 split over the line in the end was that element of chaos - people wanted to see what would happen if we pushed the big red button presented to us. That may well all be bullshit but that's how I, with my A Level Government & Politics qualification, understand it.

The biggest tangible effect we're seeing of Brexit is this disruption in importing goods from continental Europe. There's a lack of HGV drivers and supermarket shelves are noticeably more sparse than they were before. COVID hasn't helped with that either, of course. The social effect of Brexit is probably more important. I remember the UKIP leaflet depicting this BIG RED ARROW from Turkey that warned the reader against the millions of Muslims who were chomping at the bit for Turkey to become an EU member, so they could hop on the first flight to Heathrow and start scrounging off of the hardworking British taxpayer. Brexit passing was like legitimising that racist thinking. It promoted further disunity in society - the us vs them division that has grown more prominent in the last decade. And the Labour party, the left-wing option for Government in the UK, has failed miserably at speaking to the huge numbers of disaffected people. That's partly because they've been stitched up by a generally right-wing press, but they haven't been able to transcend the press or mobilise support via social media or direct action. Support for the Cult of Boris Johnson has waned significantly since COVID, but Labour haven't been able to summon up a similar personality to fight back. Jeremy Corbyn's Labour offered a legitimate alternative option, but for many reasons the message did not cut through, and Labour lost many seats that should have been safe forever after Thatcherism. The only solution seems to be an appeal to Blairite neoliberalism, a kind of soft conservatism that is palatable to home-owners and big business. Lots of people in Britain own Stuff and they want to keep that Stuff. There are faint rumblings of full-on revolution, but if two years of COVID, Black Lives Matter, and the Sarah Everard incident all are not enough to mobilise anything of significance, what would be? I see Government vacillating between centre-right and full right for my entire life, honestly.

You mentioned Charlie Brooker. Are we living in a Black Mirror episode? What are your thoughts on that show—is it at heart a kind of pitch black episodic sitcom about technology? Behind the horror of the show, I detect strains of comedic sensibility, outrageous dilemmas taken to extremes. Larry David as a deadly computer virus?

We're definitely living in a Black Mirror episode. I think Brooker especially captured the new sense of mob justice that we learned through reality TV and 24 hour news, that could then be applied to the callous extremes we see via social media. 'The National Anthem', 'White Bear', and 'White Christmas' all present a different kind of mob hysteria that lead you to feeling sympathy for truly terrible people, because the justice they have been served is one based entirely on appearance and what best serves the public narrative. In that sense, it's not really a comedy at all, though Brooker's comic sensibilities are always poking through. I especially love the visual of the White Bear Park visitors filming everything on their phones, completely zombified.

It's not the best episode, but 'The Entire History of You', written by Jesse Armstrong, probably had the most significant message of all the Channel 4 episodes (I've only watched a smattering of the Netflix ones). There is a genuine, lingering sense now that we're only participating in social occasions to capture image proof of the event and how much fun it was, to post online and play back on repeat, overwriting our memories with a staged, edited version of reality. That if it's not on the 'gram, it never happened at all. There's even this division between what people present themselves with in the immediate moment on their Story, and what image of themselves they want to keep for posterity in their main photo album. People are consciously and unconsciously changing their mannerisms and behaviours in real life to affect the presentation of their online selves. That's an inversion of what was happening pre-2010s. I'm watching how that phenomenon plays out with intent, and I hope to see fiction written about it because the ideas we play with in stories may help us understand how to shape it in a positive way.

Where do you live and what is your occupation, if you feel comfortable saying?

I'll dodge this question, if that's okay!

Do you sense the importance of free speech absolutism to the lit community that Misery Tourism is at the center of? Do you think that could ever be problematic? I’m curious what flavor that would have to a UK writer in a slightly (or largely) different cultural milieu.

It's imperative that every writer is allowed to feel comfortable sharing what they have written. How others receive that writing is up to them - the editor of a lit mag can publish or reject whatever they feel like. A writer should always have the option of self-publishing, too, though again, they have to acknowledge that they may receive a negative response from readers, or maybe worse and more likely, no response at all. But yes, every piece submitted to any lit mag should be given an honest chance by the editor, there shouldn't be any barriers to submission like fees or arcane formatting requests, and the community should encourage as wide a range of writers as possible to share their work, and not shut down people based on often trivial disagreements. When it comes down to it, we are all humans, we all have to share a baseline level of respect.

That sentiment ends for me when it comes to 'enforcing one's views upon others', or even just 'trolling'. Generally, if you want to convince someone else of your strongly held belief, a successful argument does not involve name-calling, gaslighting, or use of the cry-laugh emoji. But you see that kind of behaviour much less in the lit community than in basically any other online space, possibly because, as readers and writers, we understand how to actually share a discussion, and also have natural empathy for perspectives beyond our own. Maybe it's too idealistic of me to say, but as long as everyone participates with that basic respect and good faith, we can and should all be able to get along and share our stories.