My name is Lauren Merlo and welcome to my web site. I decided to create Crushed Marigolds because I wanted to, a) learn a bit more about web development, b) have somewhere to share my fiction and general musings about the world away from the rotten hellscape that is social media, and c) flex on people that I have a web site because not everybody does, and it's something that's cool.
(Well, I would think it was cool if somebody I knew told me they have a web site. When I tell people, a lot of them just laugh).
I live in Britain, where it is often too hot or too cold and where it rains torrential for days on end. I am in my twenties, and my hobbies include reading (obviously), writing (ditto) and cooking - the unholy trinity of boring hobbies. I also like listening to music when it's raining outside, playing video games (including visual novels), and exercising.
Alongside Crushed Marigolds, I have a full-time job in customer service, and I also study part-time for a degree in computing. I'd like to work in the IT industry, but the job market is pretty bad right now, so I might end up staying where I am for longer than I expect.
Most of what I write is short stories, but I have written novels before and am currently working on a few. I might even end up serialising them here, if I can get them into a decently readable state. A lot of what I write is about people, but I don't think I'm quite good enough yet to call it 'literary', no matter how high-falutin' my aspirations might be. I cut my teeth on a lot of new wave SF as a teenager, so there are also speculative influences there in what I write.
Some of the books I like the most are The Left Hand of Darkness (Le Guin), A Ghost in the Throat (Ní Ghríofa), Lolita (Nabokov), Never Let Me Go (Ishiguro), and Erasure (Everett). My favourite writers include Ursula K. Le Guin, Harlan Ellison, Thomas Pynchon, Haruki Murakami, Sarah Kane, and Percival Everett (list subject to change). Some of my favourite thinkers are Andrea Dworkin, Richard Feynman, and Grigori Perelman (also subject to change, though two out of those three are dead and one is a recluse so really it's anyone's guess).
In terms of music, I will listen to most genres. There is a jukebox on this site somewhere if you look for it, and you'll be able to see what I'm listening to. Some of my favourite musicians of all time are Fiona Apple, Nujabes, Death Grips, Takayan, Sufjan Stevens, and Spiritbox.
My favourite records are Trout Mask Replica by Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band, Sonderlust by Kishi Bashi, The Idler Wheel... by Fiona Apple, Lux by Rosalia, Nights From the Alhambra by Loreena McKennitt, Yoshu Fukushu by Maximum the Hormone, and Rumours by Fleetwood Mac.
I don't really watch television.
Ditto with films, but I like most of Tarantino's movies and films by Wong Kar-Wai and my three top favourite films are the original Blade Runner, School of Rock, and Sister Act.
Please feel free to look around. I have a guestbook where you can leave a comment, if you'd like.