Well, August was... quite something.
If you live in Edinburgh, August is always wild. But, even then, this August has been unreal. We've largely been tied up at the Edinburgh International Book Festival where we got to see some amazing authors in conversation - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was utterly, utterly incredible - and, excitingly, show off our books at our own local festival for the first time.
404 x Elif Shafak and Nicola Sturgeon
We yapped on about this for a while, but one half of 404 Ink joined acclaimed Turkish novelist Elif Shafak and Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon to talk about women under public scrutiny, women online, in politics, and the importance of sharing experiences.
It was an unreal day for all involved - thank you to Nick Barley and the Edinburgh Book Festival bunch for taking a punt on us. We had a great time meeting Nasty Women old and new, who had followed the story of the book or simply stumbled onto us at the festival, and we're excited by the community that's been developing around such an important book.
We were also pleased to be able to bring some 404 friends and family over to Bute House afterwards to meet Nicola. A fairly lovely way to top off a fairly wild day.
Some 404 friends and family meeting First Minister Nicola Sturgeon
Edinburgh got a lil Nasty.
The next day three of our amazing Nasty Women - Nadine Aisha Jassat, Joelle Owusu and Laura Waddell - joined the wonderful Kirsty Logan for a sold out event discussing and reading from their respective essays. Talk touched on stereotyping, the power of representation and role models, where people expect you to go in life - a thoroughly powerful and inspiring hour.
Thanks to all who came to the event! It's humbling that months after the book's release we can still bring together engaged audiences to celebrate the power of women's stories, and we appreciate you joining the Nasty Women gang.
The year of McQueer continues
We started out Edinburgh Book Festival at the launch party with a load of friends, and we bumped into Limmy! Here he is with your new favourite book. Really cool to meet him - we've been reading That's Your Lot across August and cackling away far too often on the bus.
We then ended our Edinburgh Book Festival at Unbound with our pals Flint & Pitch to celebrate their first birthday. Since launching a year ago, they've hosted some of the most exciting and fun literary and musical shenanigans in Scotland, and we've been chuffed to be even a small part of their year.
For their party, they got Chris McQueer in to read a couple of his hilarious short stories - one from his debut collection Hings, and one a b-side story that didn't quite make the cut. He joined the rad lot of A New International, Rachel McCrum, Laurence Made Me Cry and Sarah Hirsch. Happy birthday pals! Here's a few photos of Chris doing his hing. (Photos by Chris Scott.) You can pick up a copy of Hings here.
Bestseller!
And, to top off the festival... Over 66,000 books were sold at the Edinburgh Book Festival this year, and guess what? Nasty Women, our little essay collection, was the bestseller! That is unreal to us, so thank you. If you've yet to get a copy, you can pick it up here.
And finally... Nasty Women goes audio.
We announced in the summer that Audible had bought the rights to Nasty Women and, excitingly, the audiobook is HERE! You can buy a copy here and listen to Nasty Women on the go.
What a month.