It’s the last INTERROBANG‽and the last 404 INK event of the year tonight, and we’re both going out with a bang! For the 404 INK Christmas Party, we’re going to be joined by one of the best practitioners of live lit in the country, KIRSTY LOGAN!
Kirsty Logan and a rather nice cameo necklace
Kirsty’s featured in issue three of 404 Ink’s literary magazine – POWER! She lives in Glasgow and is the author of The Gracekeepers, A Portable Shelter, and The Rental Heart & Other Fairytales. Her fourth book, The Gloaming, will hit the shelves in May 2018. It’s a queer mermaid love story set on a remote island that slowly turns its inhabitants to stone. She’s currently writing a collection of horror stories called The Night Tender.
“The Ambassador’s parties are known for their exquisite good taste…”
Ross McCleary is still from Edinburgh. He has had work published recently by Five2One and Cease, Cows. He is an editor of the spoken word podcast Lies, Dreaming – which has a new call for submissions out – helps run Inky Fingers, and is overjoyed by the return of the Edinburgh Watch twitter account. His novella, Portrait of the Artist as a Viable Alternative to Death, is published by Maudlin House.
Saltire Society First Book Of The Year-winner Helen’s The Goldblum Variations is already to order as part of 404 Ink’s zine series with a limited run, and said award-winning collection On The Edges of Vision and her new collection Mayhem and Death are forthcoming in 2018.
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 Welsh: Superpower – being awesome
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)
Unrecorded Sophia Jex-Blake talent: building narrative tension…
‽: 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.
Congratulations to our pals at 404 INK, who won the Saltire Society’s Emerging Publishers of the Year for 2017 last night. We’re sure you’ll all agree that it’s hugely well deserved.
Countdown to the National Trust for Scotland plaque starts here…
And congratulations to us for having the opportunity to host the launch of 404 Ink Issue 2: POWER in Edinburgh this coming Friday, 8 December. The mag includes work by Interrobang veterans, pals, and known associates Andrew Blair, Ever Dundas, Rebecca Raeburn, Ross McCleary, and Stuart Kenny, so we can’t wait to encourage people to get it in their hands.
Thanks to Flint & Pitch’s Cameron Foster, it looks great, too.
Even better, the launch event features performances from Ross, the incomparable Kaite Welsh, Siobhan Shields, and the fabulous Helen McClory – author of Mayhem & Death, coming March 2018 from 404.
We’re also promised wonderful music and more shenanigans, so get your tickets now, follow 404 INK on Twitter @404Ink, and STAY TUNED!!!
The launch party for 404 INK’s Issue 3: POWER takes place this Friday, 8 December from 7pm at Summerhall. Get your tix here while you can.
We reckon Chris has assembled got the best line-up of live lit you can see in Scotland this year, and as much McQueer as you can handle. It’s going to be a book launch like you’ve never seen before.
Interrobang and The Ogilvie‘s A New World?! is only days away, so we thought we’d titillate your literary senses and bring to you the next tall glass of talent on Friday’s lineup. And here he is – Scottish Book Trust Award winning Simon Brown.
Photograph by ROB MCDOUGALL www.RobMcDougall.com 07856222103 info@robmcdougall.com
Originally from the Highlands, Simon Brown now lives in Edinburgh. He’s been published in 404 Ink and recently won a Scottish Book Trust New Writer’s Award. He’s currently trying to squeeze out his third novel.
?!: It’s time for A New World. What Earth-shattering thing would you invent to usher it in?
A giant anti-human prophylactic because we’d probably fuck it up if we were allowed in.
?!: But if we’re stuck in this world for now, where in it would you like to visit to experience a sense of renewal?
I’d love to see Lalibela in Ethiopia, where they have these churches they carved out of the rock.
?!: And what’s the most vivid representation of a new world that you’ve seen on page or screen?
The Road. It’s such an atmospheric, claustrophobic read and I can’t wait to see how accurate it turns out to be.
?!: Antonín Dvořák thought the New World sounded like his ninth symphony. But what music is playing as your new world crashes into existence?
You’d want the first song everyone heard to be memorable, so probably Mr. Bungle. But if we couldn’t get the appropriate public performance licences, then I’d be more than happy to strum the only two chords I know on guitar.
Thanks for that, Simon?!
?!: Finally (and without giving too much away!) what can you tell us about what you’ll be sharing at A New World?!
It’s about a farmer tending to some unusual crops.
Here at Interrobang we’re all about unusual crops. We wonder if Simon will bring us along some unusual snacks?! Only one way to find out. Come along to Interrobang and The Ogilvie’s: A New World, this Friday 7th April, 7pm at The Biscuit Factory.
You can get tickets on the door, or make it easy on yourself by getting them up front at Eventbrite.
