Interview with Kiran Mathew

This interview has been edited for clarity. 

Kiran and I met at Paul’s Casablanca in mid-November. I remember he was sitting at a table – which I believe belonged to Sophia Lamar – we recognized each other, and I sat down with him. We were immediately chatting, and both fell into a bit about how our lawyers will be in contact. I always appreciate someone who hops on an impromptu bit minutes after meeting. We had been Instagram friends, and I was a fan of his writing way before meeting him. When my friends and I decided to interview people for Sunbleacht, Kiran was the first person I suggested, and I asked him to write an article for the magazine about the appeal of nightlife: You Should be a Night Walker

AH: Tell me how you started to get into writing.

KM: I’ve always loved writing. The blog that my column and such is hosted on has been around since 2015. It was really what made me happy and excited about school. When I would come home and tell my parents [about school] I wouldn’t have much to say unless there was writing I really liked. So they kind of picked up on that, and I did writing camps – summer camps at Northwestern and UChicago when I was younger. And then I started my blog, and did it there. 

AH: Do you still have your writing from when you were a kid? Do you read it?

KM: I do. It’s all private on the site, so I go back and read it sometimes. It’s funny because it’s bad. It’s bad! Because a ten year old wrote it. But, it’s funny because you can tell that I really had something to say. It was random nonsense – life updates, a movie review, moving to Chicago, just really what was going on in my life. I think I didn’t have the form down, didn’t have a good vocabulary, but you can tell there is something underneath it that wants to be said, weirdly. But I didn’t have the skill to fully bring it out. 

AH: That’s really cute. What is your favorite kind of stuff to write about now? 

KM: I love nightlife. I mean, that is so fun to write about. And that was one of the big joys when I started it, that people really liked reading it. Creative nonfiction is where my heart is at. A good little braided essay is a favorite of mine, and so I always have a few of those in progress that I just kind of chip away at whenever I feel inspired. That creative nonfiction thing of putting this life experience that I had in conversation with a story that someone told me, in conversation with this song that I really like, and this short story by someone. It’s just so personal but also really universal. 

AH: Are you a big reader?

KM: 
I used to be. I think it’s hard, it’s definitely harder, with being in college. But I want to do it more. Like everyone, I buy a bunch of books and I’d start them and never finish them. I read lots of Substacks and lots of short-form stuff just because I feel like it’s more accessible and easier to read out and about. Like I’m not going to be that person who is reading a book on the train, haha, that’s not really how I want to be seen. 

AH: What do you want to do with your writing? Where do you want it to go? 

KM: 
I don’t know. I used to want to be a writer full time. When I was a kid, that’s what I would say my dream job was, and then I think, growing up, I realized that’s a really hard way to make a living. It’s not a steady income, nothing is guaranteed. 
And then with generative AI, I get really scared-slash-bummed out about it because this is kind of my dream job being outsourced to a machine. Now I’m thinking PR or marketing is what I’d want to do. But I’ve always said, I want to do journalism on the side. I want to do a guest essay every once in a while, or an op-ed or be a guest contributor. 

AH: What’s your favorite thing you’ve ever written? 


KM: Oh, I know this. I’m a huge perfectionist, especially when it comes to writing. I think it’s really hard for me, like most writers, to reread stuff that I’ve written later on because I’ll always think of different ways that I could have done it. 
Even with my column, I really have to fight that urge to edit things – like I can just click in and make a few changes and save it, and no one will know, but I want to fight that urge. 
But when I was in high school, there was a really nasty rumor spread about me by this girl I had this big falling out with. And I was not very self-assured to begin with, not shy, but a little timid. I was really resistant, really hesitant to fight for myself and stand up for myself. I kind of just laid down and took it for the rest of the year and that was really nasty. Luckily, I had an amazing group of friends who were just awesome and got me through. The way that I moved through that was writing. I would sit in the library during my free period and write as if I was explaining everything that was happening to someone else. 
And that was so healing, so cathartic, so really what I needed to push through. Then there was this literary magazine that I was a part of in high school… 

AH: Me too!

KM: Wait, really, were you like a head honcho? 

AH: No, I was actually the Design Editor and did the format.

KM: Makes sense. This magazine, they always put out this call for personal essays and never really got a lot, and so that was my piece. It was basically a kind of open letter to the student body. I was like, here’s what you’ve heard about me, this is what actually happened. And so it was like 25% of my college personal statement, and I pulled in stuff from those documents that I’d written and made this three page piece that just told everything that happened, in my own words. 
And that was my favorite – the most important thing I’ve ever written – because I just needed to say it. It was my senior year, I was about to graduate, and I had to just say it. When I reread it, it’s the one piece where I have no notes and no changes. 

AH: That’s awesome, and now there’s this personal piece of you there. 

KM: Yeah, 
I just love the idea of everyone who did me wrong reading that and being like, oh shit. Yeah. We fucked up. I got a lot of apology texts. That was another element of it. I loved having an audience and getting to tell my story in my own words in a way that was comfortable, because writing’s like second nature to me. 

AH: That’s so boss. 

KM: It felt amazing, it felt so good. Yeah. Seeing that in print was a really, really great moment. 


AH: Has there ever been a time you didn’t like to write? Or you were just like, I can’t? 
Or anything you really didn’t like writing? 

KM: I’ve gotten really good at when I have a writing assignment that I’m not a fan of, being able to kind of make it something that I like. Because the thing is, if I’m not interested in the thing I’m writing, it’s not going to turn out good, no matter how hard I try. I feel like around this time last year, I was a little creatively burned out.
 And I wanted to write because that’s how I process and think about things and engage with the world meaningfully. But I just couldn’t sit down and get words to come out. I was so stuck. 
And this was actually how the column started. I had a final assignment in my writing class with my writing teacher, Carley Moore, who is so cool. She’s such a good writer and such a fun teacher. I remember when she talked about our final assignment being a blog post at the beginning of the year I was like, oh, that’s going to be my shit. I’ve had this blog for like ten years, it’s going to be light work. And then the time comes around, and I have such bad writer’s block. I have no idea what to do. So I went to her office hours and I was like, I don’t know what to talk about. Then she was like, “okay, tell me what you did this weekend.” 
And I was like, oh… I feel like I have to self-censor here. And she said “don’t, just tell me.” And so I told her I went to this party in Brooklyn, called “The Night of a Thousand Twinks,” and if you were a twink and you came before 11, you got in for free. 
I just told her about my weekend and the weird shit that I had done, and she was like, “that’s what you have to write about!” And I was like, I don’t know… And she said, “everyone knows undergraduates go out, if you want to write about it, you can’t let that stop you, you should just do it.” 
And it was for our class blog, it wasn’t going to go anywhere, originally. I was so stuck trying to make something happen that I wasn’t even paying attention to what I actually wanted to do. And it took her pointing out how excited I got telling her about my weekend. 
That was really cool. 
She’s amazing, I love her. 

AH: Tell me some more about starting the column? 

KM: I had written a few essays: I wrote one about the college process – about getting rejected from Columbia, and I wrote a few [during] my first few months in New York, and then wasn’t really touching it. 
And then I had this blog assignment, wrote my piece, and it wasn’t called “Kiran in the City” yet, but it was called “In Defense of the Five Day Weekend.” I wrote that for my class, and part of our grade was having to workshop it. So I put it on the class page, so everyone could read it and bring their notes – and everyone loved it. And then I was telling my friends the story of how, “oh, I’m writing about us getting drunk and causing problems at nightclubs for my writing class’s final,” and they really loved that, and they wanted to read it. I had my computer and opened the Google Doc and showed them, and they passed it around and each person read a few paragraphs. Seeing how excited they got was the moment I kind of knew… because not only did I really love writing this, but also people are enjoying reading it. 
As a writer, it’s not often where those two things intersect – the things that you want to write are not always what people want to read. Especially now, in the modern era, what people want to read is not what’s fun to write about. And so that was really affirming seeing how my friends loved seeing themselves in writing and loved seeing it from a new perspective. So I put it on the blog. I was so nervous about it because I was thinking, I know I have family members who follow me on here and they’re just going to read this blog post about me drinking all over the city, but I was very, very cautious with it. I didn’t name drop any clubs for the longest time. 
I had nicknames, I would just be very vague, there were no references to alcohol or being drunk or anything. I wanted to make it really about what I am experiencing, what fun things are happening and not “oh, look how drunk my friends and I can get.” I wanted it to be tasteful and artful. And I was so nervous. And then I published it. 

Then the next week, I was in limbo. I was like, I don’t know if this is going to be a thing or if it’s going to be like – a lot of things I do, in terms of writing – I’m just going to do it once when I’m really motivated, and then it’s going to fall off. And then we were at Jean’s, and I get a text from one of my friends and it said, “Kate Moss is at Paul’s Casablanca!!” So my friends and I haul ass out of Jean’s, call a cab, get to Paul’s, and lo and behold, there’s Kate Moss and Charlotte Tilbury, in their booth surrounded by security, living their best lives. So at that point, I have my phone open and I’m taking notes because I’m thinking, okay, this is going to be a thing. 
So yeah, I owe it all to Kate Moss and my writing teacher really. 

AH: I remember waking up – I don’t think we went out that night – and everyone was saying “Kate Moss was at Paul’s!” and I was like “I should’ve gone.”

KM: It was surreal – my friend was crying because she was like, “oh my gosh, I love her so much!” 

AH: I’m so jealous. Were they talking to people or were they just together?

KM: 
They were surrounded by security, there was no way anyone was going to get in, but just breathing their same air. My friend Elijah shared a cigarette with her, weirdly. 
Yeah, I don’t know how she does it, but she does it. 

AH: That’s such a fun fact. 

KM: Ugh, Kate Moss in the club.

AH: Tell me about your most fun club night, your most fun going out night. 


KM: I have so many good ones. I think there’s one that changed the way I view nightlife. It was around this time last year, and my friend texted me and had just broken up with her boyfriend of around five years and was like, ‘no one knows, but I really need to hit the town.’ 
And I was like, okay, we’re going, I got you. And I was loosely talking to this guy who was hosting at the Public rooftop. I told him I’m bringing my friends, then we went and met all his friends. I always say it’s a mark of privilege to go out on a Tuesday night or Wednesday night. 
There are certain kinds of people who can make that work: models, artists, businessmen, students. You meet some really interesting people in that specific scene. So we met all of them, it was really fun, and obviously I’m really happy because I liked this guy. Then we go to Casa, and I just remember talking to Sophia Lamar – who was my celebrity crush at the time. Like, ex-Club Kid in the 80s, this fabulous force of nature, indie film star, model who has just done so much with her life, and built that career out of nightlife. And I remember it was one of the first times I ever talked to her because I was so intimidated by her because 
I was like, “fuck this woman’s like a living legend!” And I don’t want to embarrass myself and sound stupid, but I really want to talk to her. We stayed at Paul’s until close. It was one of my first times staying until four in the morning, so that was really fun – the energy gets really crazed at like 3:30, and then at like 3:50 a bunch of people will come in, and then it empties out obviously at four because they kick everyone out. They’re like, “you’re not coming to the after party?” 
And I was like, “the what?” We went to this one guy’s apartment in Midtown, which was –  I don’t even know how to describe it – it was so eclectic and maximalist. There was a funko pop collection, there were dream catchers and insects preserved in resin on the walls, LED light strips all around, two Christmas trees, weirdly, in the middle of March. 
It was just so funny and weird, and we stayed up until 9 in the morning playing Mario Kart. But I think that kind of changed the way I saw nightlife – not as a pastime– but that this is like an art form for a lot of people. This is a career for a lot of people, this is so much more than just “I’m going to get drunk and be weird out on the town.” We were with this girl who’s a DJ and she DJed Lady Gaga’s sister’s bachelorette party. And then obviously the guy I was seeing who is a host and makes money doing that. Clubbing gets demonized, you know, there’s weird shit that happens in night life. There’s shady characters. 
There’s lots of drugs, there’s lots of alcohol and alcoholism. It’s not all great, but this was a moment where I was kind of like wait, this can be a really cool thing… and you can make such a cool community within these spaces. 
It’s weird to say a “formative” night out, but it was a really formative night out.

AH: Core memory! 

KM: Core memory, yeah. 
I wrote about it in my nightlife awards.

AH: I just have one more question. What is your favorite song by The Smiths? In honor of Morrissey night. 

KM: “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now” is good, but that one is so overplayed that I can’t say that. 
That one’s too popular and needs something a little more…

AH: Off the radar?

KM: Yeah. I don’t know, I like “Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want.” I’ve really grown to love it because of Morrissey Nite. I have my Morrissey Nite playlist on when I’m getting ready.

AH: So do I!

KM: I don’t know if it’s my favorite kind of music, but it just scratches an itch in my brain. It makes me feel so happy. “Just Like Heaven” by The Cure – when that song comes on – it’s weird because I get nostalgic for memories that I’m living. I always think about things like, “oh, in 20 years, I’m going to hear this song and I’m going to think about these nights that I spent with my friends, at my favorite club and in my favorite city in the world.” That’s going to be a really surreal experience. 

AH: 
I’m glad we think the same. 

KM: There is so much to say there, because I feel like I get really in my head about aging and growing up because it sucks! It’s not fucking fun. 
I hate it. When I look at old pictures of myself, I feel like I’m really self-conscious about this time – it’s so precious and it’s going away. Time is marching on, whether I want it to or not. I’m about to be in my 20s, I don’t know, those are gonna be the years. I want to make them count. I don’t want to look back and have any regrets, which is impossible, but I want to get as close as possible to that.