Haley Mlotek Talks About Her Personal Space
The author of 'No Fault' discusses the influence of her grandmother's interior design and so much more
This winter, Haley Mlotek’s debut book, No Fault, was released. Haley’s addition to the much discussed ‘divorce book trend’ goes beyond memoir alone. In the book she digs into the history of the titular no fault divorce, the divorce film canon, marriage dynamics in proto-reality television, and so much more. It’s a book about her experience as the daughter of a divorce mediator, and later, a woman going through a divorce, but also a book about the people and cultural artifacts that provide some measure of stability through life’s turbulence.
I first fell for Haley’s writing a decade ago. I was in high school and discovered her work in the now defunct Little Brother Magazine on the stands of a Chapters Bookstore. (Barnes and Noble, essentially, for any non-Canadians in the room with us.) I immediately got in touch with her to interview her for my zine, and we’ve been friends ever since. At that time, Haley was working as the publisher of Worn Fashion Journal (another beloved Toronto indie mag I discovered at Chapters), and later on she would go to edit at The Hairpin, MTV News, and SSENSE. Now she’s the Director of Content at Feeld.
Regardless of personal biases, Haley is one of my favorite writers. Her writing is concise in a way that feels inviting and kaleidoscopic, not rigid or closed off. She doesn’t claim to know all of the answers—the fun is in turning the question over again and again. Haley has spoken about her love of research-as-procrastination and I think this authentic passion for other perspectives is what gives her work such depth. That same care and attention to detail comes across in her work as an editor too.
10 years later, I asked Haley if I could interview her again. She’s given so many fantastic interviews about her work on the book (Jia Tolentino’s in Interview is a personal favorite) so for Personal Space, I spoke with her about her own personal spaces. Below, we discuss her apartments through the years, how her approach to interiors differs from fashion, how her grandmother influences her design choices, and more.
Thank god for big box bookstores!!!
Something that was interesting about reading this book is about how much your mom's work as a divorce mediator is a part of your home life, since her office was in the home. Could you tell me about how you view living spaces and boundaries with work?
Absolutely. The apartment I live in now is the first time I've lived in my own place where I have an office. I haven't done much with it, but it does mean that there's like a distinct zone of my living space that's just for work, which I've always wanted and it's felt very important. As you know, as a freelancer, the boundaries between personal and professional get very blurred when you're working from home all the time.
In the home that I spent the most time in before I moved out, my mother's office also doubled as our TV room. It was definitely a distinct space, like she had the desk and the filing cabinet and the couches where her clients sat, but then after the work day or on the weekends, that's where I would go to watch, like, The OC. You know, it was like a small house. It was the same thing, I would say, with all the houses before then, too. The house we lived in before that, after I got home from school, she would be on the computer writing up parenting plans, and I would be watching Oprah.
I write in the book about how this was an era where I don't even think my mother would have had an email address for maybe the first two or three years of the business, like that would have come later. It's in the book that the phone was always ringing. I think as an adult now, I sort of have that sense of finding it very familiar and so comforting to feel like everything about my living space is also my professional space, but obviously keeping some distinct boundaries is for the best.
I feel a little superstitious about my productivity and I've noticed that when I'm primarily working from home, I only have about eight months in one zone before I have to make some sort of fundamental change, or I just can't be productive there anymore. After I've lived here for eight months, I'm going to have to move my desk to a different corner or something like that. But it is very nice, I think, to be able to do the majority of my work right in my home. That's definitely, in many ways, a luxury that was modeled for me from a very young age because of the fact that my mother did it too.
How does your appreciation for fashion compare to how you feel about interior design?
For some reason, I have always felt like interior design was something that was beyond me, which is very funny, because it's not like I really think that fashion isn't beyond me. It's just that I want to figure it out and work to figure it out. I do a lot of looking at different things and searching for inspiration and researching and shopping and like buying things and talking about it, but I just don't have the same impulse towards interior design, not because I love it any less, but just because it feels like such a skill that would take more effort and taste than I have to give to it. Maybe part of that too is that my grandmother, one of her jobs, was as an interior decorator, and her apartment, obviously, was so gorgeous. It really had that sense of being so effortless and so rooted in who she was. It seemed like if I wasn't her, that I wouldn't be able to make those choices, or know how to do exactly that, so why even try?
Now, since I'm living by myself again, the only interior decorating that I've done has been very much about her. I have one of her quilts that I hung over my bed, which I love. In looking back, and like in my memories, looking at photos, I can see that I actually do sort of understand the principles of how she would lay out a room to make it very inviting, or hospitable to small groups or to dinner parties and I'm definitely trying to apply that in my own space with some success. I bought a rug recently, and I was really impressed with myself because I think it's beautiful, but it also just feels like the type of choice my grandmother would have made. I've spoken about this with some of my friends who work in interior design or who write about interior design professionally, where they have kind of expressed the reverse impulse of what I have towards interior design, that's what they have towards fashion. I know there are people who are incredible at both, but I wonder if there's a funny dichotomy where, like, early on, we decide that we have to choose one.
Totally. There's another moment in your book where you talk about living in this apartment that's right by the park that you and your friends all hung out at and how you kept your apartment so tidy because people would always pop in to use the bathroom there. As you've lived in different places, and as your social life has changed in these places, how has your approach to your living space changed?
It's so funny. I actually had friends over for dinner soon after I moved in here, and I was just like a fiend for cleaning. Then my sister just came and stayed with me for the first time and it was the same thing. It was my first chance trying out the day bed that I bought and stuff like that. So I definitely think of it as the greatest motivator. But even for me, you know, it's so funny, like I might have some friends come over this weekend and I just like, haven't really had time to clean it or organize it the way I would like. I almost sent them a text to be like, "Oh no, my place is such a disaster." But then I was looking around, and it's like, I have a tote bag on the floor and there's like, a lot of piles of books and things like that. I'm like, it's fine in here. Honestly, it's nice.
I think maybe my standards have been influenced by perfectly manicured photographs online. The only time I really see into pure strangers homes are when they're perfectly set up for a portrait. But I love going over to other people's homes and seeing them exactly as they are.
Do you feel content in your mess?
No, I feel very stressed out about mess. That doesn't mean I clean.
This is how I feel. I feel so much better when it's not a mess. After I tidy up I'm like, "Imagine if my life could be like this every day."
I just had to drive myself back here with the flu, with all of my book tour suitcases. I had to leave them sitting for maybe three days because I was just legitimately too sick to unpack, let alone do laundry. I truly just pulled out my toothbrush to my contact lens solution, and that took all of my strength. I felt extra miserable and I don't think it was just because I had the flu, I think it was because I was like in this still transitional space where I couldn't fully be at home. So when I finally was able to unpack everything and do my laundry and put clothes away, I did feel very much at peace.
What do you think as you've been on tour—I know it's not like you're a rock star, where you've been gone for months or something—but was there anything in particular you missed about being home?
Yeah, I love my new apartment so much. It truly is just my dream home. With this one it's the first time that before I leave, I'm missing home and I'm very excited to get back to it.
What in particular makes you feel that way?
Definitely the living room. That's where the rug is, I got a beautiful couch, I have plants, I have my books. It just looks exactly like I want it to look. It looks like my home. Being there feels really, really nice. Over the holidays, I took two full weeks off and did literally nothing. I cannot stress how little I did. I had my friends over one morning, and I went for lunch with one friend who was visiting from out of of town. But that was it. The rest of the time I was just on the couch watching movies and now that's all I want to be doing all the time.
What is your ideal writing set up?
You know, I don't really have one right now. I definitely have superstitions about how and when and where I get my best writing done, but when I get too deep into them, I do have to remind myself like, "You get your best writing done when you're getting writing done.” It is something that often needs a little bit of special treatment, but it doesn't live or die by it. Since I moved into this place, I have a desk in the living room, right in front of the big windows and I think that is kind of ideal for me. Something quiet, spacious, with a lot of natural light, but oftentimes I find that it really is more, I'm sorry to say, it's like a state of mind.
I don't ever write, like in bed. I'm not one of those people. Very rarely do I write on the couch. I like quiet simplicity. Daylight I find, first thing in the morning, is almost always best for me. But a lot of the book was written in very unfamiliar places. At Banff, when I did the residency, that was incredible. That's like, obviously, the dream work space, no question. But then occasionally I would go to just a random hotel for a weekend, just to focus on something. I did that, I think, three or four times over the course of writing the book. Or coffee shops. Or on the Via Rail between Toronto and Montreal. Really, anywhere where I can lock in.
The home office is where you go to get severed.
Literally. I'll just be refining all day.
You mentioned buying the rug, and I'm wondering, how do you approach these home purchases that maybe you're more precocious about than you are with clothing? What are your variables that you meet in order to feel confident with it?
I definitely will start with an idea in mind. Sometimes that's like a specific brand or it's a specific item. I knew I really wanted a vintage rug. I knew that was important and I knew it was probably going to be a Persian rug, because that was like the image I had in my mind for my dream living room, which is also very based on my grandmother's decorating taste. Then it was just kind of a question of waiting to see how I could find it, versus how it would find me. It was a lot of asking people for recommendations and trolling around Instagram. I did eventually find it through Instagram, through, I think it was one of my former co-workers, at SSENSE had posted, and they tagged a company. It was somebody I'd always thought it was having very good taste. It’s from this company Catalog Three. I looked at this rug for months and months and months, like, "Is this her? Is this it?" It's very expensive, I was waiting. Then finally, I was like, "This is her, she's coming home."