As you may already know, INTERROBANG‽ is hugely excited to have the opportunity to team up with 404 INK again to launch the third issue of their literary mag: 404 INK – POWER.
And this is not least because we get to hear from one of our favourite writers and a star of 404 INK’s legendary Nasty Women, KAITE WELSH.
Kaite is an author, journalist and professional lesbian. Her debut book The Wages of Sin, the first in a series of Victorian feminist crime novels starring fallen woman, medical student and amateur sleuth Sarah Gilchrist, was published in 2017. The second novel, The Unquiet Heart, is due out in August 2018. She covers LGBT issues for the Daily Telegraph, agitates for LGBT rights on national radio and has a colour-coded five year plan.
And these are her reflections on POWER…
‽: Knowledge is power. But if you could have any superpower, what would it be?
KW: Honestly, I’d settle for being to do 100 squats without wanting to cry.
‽: Oof! That’s bringing a tear to our eye. Moving on…! We love a launch. Can you remember what it was that launched you on your literary adventures?
KW: These two plaques in the University of Edinburgh old medical school building – one to Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, and one to Sophia Jex-Blake, one of the first women to study medicine at Edinburgh. The idea of a crime-solving lady doctor in the 19th century was born then… (see the answer below for what happened next)
‽: It’s the festive season. What, other than a copy of 404 Ink’s POWER, would make a good gift for a loved one?
KW: A copy of my debut novel The Wages of Sin, out now from all good publishers. [Well, *certain* good publishers! ? – Ed.] Plucky Victorian heroines! Horrible Victorian medical procedures! Feminism! Murder!
‽: Ricky Interrobang’s partner has already powered through it! Oh well. Back to the drawing board…. There are loads of great songs with the word Power in the title. Do you have a favourite that powers you up? Or failing that, a power ballad that’s a guilty pleasure?
KW: The entire Girl Power album by 90s pop heroines Shampoo. The title song is this poppy anthem about violence and drinking and female friendship – you think it’s going to be this Spice Girls-eque lipstick and glitter version of womanhood and actually it’s this incitement to violence on alcopops.
(note: Kaite endorses neither violence or alcopops – it says here – unless it’s the cranberry Archers they used to do in 2001.)
‽: People are telling us how much they’re looking forward to the launch of POWER. Without giving too much away, can you tell us a little bit about what you’ll be sharing with us?
KW: Vlogmas with a difference. And by ‘difference’, I mean ‘cursed advent calendar’.
Sounds scary! But we’ll all get through it with an alcopop or two. Find out what happens when Kaite opens the doors of her cursed advent calendar at the launch party for 404 INK’s Issue 3: POWER this Friday, 8 December from 7pm at Summerhall. Get your tix here while you can.