Interview: Being Very Mean to Leonard Delaney

A post by P.T. Phronk,
of Forest City Pulp fame

Hi. I'm P.T. Phronk. It's my turn to do an interview here on ATB, so I thought I'd reach out to fellow Forest City Pulp author Leonard Delaney. Leonard is a close friend. In fact, he's as close as two different pen names can be.
 
Delaney achieved brief viral popularity a few years back, when he released Conquered by Clippy, an erotic short story about Microsoft's annoying digital helper who only old people remember now. He was interviewed by media from Vice to Men's Health, for some reason. Even today, academic examinations of Delaney's work help define the 21st century, as in this treatise from the future: A Literary Review of Sex and Technophobia in Leonard Delaney’s Digital Desires: Taken by the Tetris Blocks.
 
So it is an honour to speak with Leonard today, who joins us from rural Ontario, where he has been in quarantine since 2017.

You can find Leonard Delaney on Twitter by using this hyperlink.
 
 
P.T. Phronk: Okay, give us an intro.
 
Leonard Delaney: Oh, this is one of those interviews where I do all the work, cool. I'm Leonard, and I write technology-and-pop-culture-focused erotica. I've written about having sexual relations with everything from wrist watches to planets. 
 
 

It's Leonard Delaney.

 
PTP: What work would you say you're best known for?
 
LD: My novella Motherfucking Wizards is selling best these days, because people are still weirdly obsessed with Harry Potter, and it's kind of a parody of that. Maybe it's also because J.K. Rowling became dumb and anti-transgender, so people are looking for better alternatives to her stories, and Motherfucking Wizards is a lot better as long as you are an adult who can handle sexual wizardry.
 
Conquered by Clippy was the story that people really gravitated towards, though, so I'm best known for that.
 

PTP: I heard that the creator of Clippy is aware of the book.
 
LD: Kevan Atteberry, yeah. He was actually pretty mean about it in one of his interviews (he probably means this one —PTP), where he admitted to pirating a PDF of my book and thought the writing was bad so he didn't even finish reading the book he stole. He's wrong, though, because I Google almost every word I write and make sure it's spelled right, so my writing is really good. This guy can't even spell "Kevin" so what the crap does he know? And he liked artwork depicting a pregnant Clippy, so maybe the issue is that he's got very specific fetishes about his creation.
 
 

 
 
PTP: Why do you think people describe your books as "erotica by a virgin"?
 
LD: That's actually a really mean thing to say. First the creator of Clippy is mean to me, and now you are mean to me. The definitions of things like "virgin" and "sex" are very fluid in this year twenty twenty, so what would that even mean? I think if you read some papers about human intercourse you'd find that my writing is very realistic.
 
 
 
PTP: Fine, so, changing subject, you said you've been in quarantine since 2017, but the pandemic only started in 2019?
 
LD: My books have always been future-facing, so I suppose I am ahead of my time. I was already spending a lot of my hours inside, because it's warm in here and I have to feed my mom's cats, but the pandemic emphasized that it's actually important and selfless to stay inside. Heroic, even. So am I a hero? Many people are saying that, but as a man staying in my house all the time, I'm really only doing my duty, as a man, which also gives me more time to write.
 
 
PTP: But you haven't published anything since 2017 either.
 
LD: Look, fine, so I kind of went into hiding. People are mean to me, as you’ve seen first-hand. Plus, the whole novelty erotica thing was starting to feel like it was getting old. And it felt wasteful to write about topics ripped straight from the headlines, because the headlines change every day … even faster in the last few years. So I'd do something like My Racist Robot Lover, and a few days later nobody would even know what it's referring to. Do you remember Microsoft's problematic millennial chat bot, Tay? I barely do.
 
 
PTP: I have the same memories as you. But I'm surprised you didn't write anything about the coronavirus.
 
LD: That would be a bit tacky. I know COVID-19 erotica has been done, and authors like Chuck Tingle are still plugging away and doing a really good job of erotically covering current events without being too negative or exploitative. Maybe there's still a place for tech-focused erotica, though. I don't know.
 
 
PTP: Does that mean there's hope for a Leonard Delaney comeback?
 
LD: If the time was right to do something fresh again, sure, maybe. You said yourself that it's hard to put in the work to create something great during periods of difficulty, and that affects me too. But ... maybe. Follow me on Twitter dot com and other online hangouts in case I make any moves.
 
 
PTP: Where can people find you online?
 
LD: This question is unnecessary. Please Google my name and put links at the top of this interview, or you can go back and hyperlink all the stuff I've said in this interview before you post it. Don't you know about linking on websites? Websites are amazing.
 
 
PTP: Thank you for the advice about websites, and also for the interview. We'll keep an eye out for that comeback you're definitely staging.