oh, hey! pleased to meet you
- I make art (a lot of kinds). I write stuff sometimes (fiction, mostly).
- I will 100% talk to you on a train if you start the conversation, and I will probably love it.
- My husband told me that, in response to people asking me what I do, I should say "Fixer," because I do a lot of unrelated things for a lot of unrelated (but also literally related) people, and saying "fixer" is funny. And I live for the MacGyver and jury-rig. Have you ever plugged a hole in the wall (as water is pouring through it and flooding the basement) with a medical glove and paper towels? I have, baby. I have.
- I have an MFA. Jury is out on whether or not this was, financially, a good idea. If I publish a book before I'm dead, it was probably worth it. If not--well, goshdarnit, I made some friends along the way.
- I’ve been art- and prose-published in some places (Barrelhouse, Hobart, Rivet, Distillations/Chemical Heritage Foundation…).
- I was the Barrelhouse art director for, like, five years?
- I’ve designed some book covers, logos, and merch.
- I tattooed for a little while.
- I helped some people get through high school, college, and grad school. Paper editor, moral supporter, resume consultant. Like he said: fixer.
- I deleted previous websites in times of emotional turmoil, because being a human who keeps a website can be stressful and expensive. All you really need is a good domain name and a free blogger account! Probably. Sure, setting up any sort of "store" here is difficult, but it's nothing an email address and Venmo account can't manage! See? Fixer.
- I left Twitter a very long time ago. Sorry, my dudes, but I'm not joining Bluesky. I forgot how to be pithy after I left Twitter. RIP, jokes.
- I’m still on instagram, though.
I did a short interview for Barrelhouse recently, and you can get to know me fairly well through it (and this blog, natch), so I'll link that here, too.
Tom from Book Fight! blurbed me thusly*:
"Killian Czuba is the roux that thickens your soup; seemingly ordinary at first, but capable of alchemy, of binding the unbindable, of stabilizing the unstabilizeable. In the four course meal of life, she's the unsung hero--not as flashy as the ceviche and the foie gras but infinitely more important. The cornerstone of the entire culinary experience, she is flour and butter combined and cooked over low heat and transformed into something magical and unexplainable."
That's right. Fixer.
*this blurb was sort of a Book Fight! in-joke, but I'm using it because it was very flattering