TenQ: Victoria Squid

1. What name(s) do you go by?

Victoria, Vicky, Ms. Squid.

2. Where can we find your fabulous work (both online and IRL)?

In the pages of the Journal of the Women's League of Ale Drinkers, available for just 99¢!

3. What piece would you want to use for a "first impression"?

I mostly do performance pieces that are gone once they're over, so there's little tangible to show. I suppose there's always this.

4. How did you learn your skill/craft/discipline?

By slow degrees and via many mistakes and wrong turns...

5. Who/what inspires you?

Artists who refuse to fit a label or a pigeon-hole; people who refuse to live in accordance with consumer society, who make their own art, play their own songs, write their own stories and never worry if anyone else is going to give them permission to do so.

6. How do you cope with the inevitable discouraging days?

Martinis, martinis, martinis.

7. What are your goals for your work?

To be brilliant, to rule the world (not necessarily in that order).

8. What wisdom from your own experience would you pass on to other WLoAD members?

Dare much, follow no one, trust your instincts.

9. If you received a million dollar grant, how would you make use of it?

By traveling the world.

10. WLoADed stars need not actually drink ale: what's your fave bevvie?

A very dry martini -- think Sahara, Mojave -- olives on the side. Nice view of the Thames. Or a glass of Zubrowka, seemingly the official drink of the League (oh irony).

Who is Vicky Squid?

Victoria to those she has not met formally. An enigma? Her origins remain unclear, lost not in the mists of time, but the whirlwind of her life. It's said she rubs elbows with the crowned heads of Europe, but there are also those who claim she is more likely to be found in the shadowy alleys of artists' mews and garrets, in fact many say she has been captured in oils and in marble. While her shape has been reproduced, no still art can imprison the spark of inspiration that fires those restless rambles across town and country.

For Vicky is a traveler, seldom content to linger in one location beyond a season, always seeking new adventures, new partners, new inspiration, new fashions. A bon vivant, it's true, yet so much more than that dissolute tag implies. Not for her the mere thrill of new experience. She searches for the unknown, the unheard, the unseen—jewels of inspiration not mere oblivion or sensual pleasure or novelty.

Asked once what excites her interest, she was reported to reply, "Passion. Vision. Daring. Humour. Any alone will be intriguing—but to have them all is to be sublime."

And that is the mandate of the new journal for the Women's League of Ale Drinkers, for which Vicky will serve as editor. We seek only work that meets these criteria, the output of creative women who may feel that their vision and passion has been overlooked elsewhere, that their daring has brought only disapproving stares, that their humour has met with stony silence. We delight in work that crosses traditional genres.

We do not ask for your credentials, awards or publications. We ask for your heartfelt work -- writing in RTF files, art in JPGs, music and video via links. We ask that you tell us why the piece embodies your reason to live, to breathe -- what the work means to you, even why you think it may not have received an audience before.

And if we select your work for WLoAD, we ask that you wear the badge proudly -- link to our site and your fellow artists, promote the journal assiduously and celebrate this forum (i.e. comment on the issue and your colleagues).

Our first issue will be available in full colour PDF in time for Halloween. Submissions should be sent to VICTORIASQUID@GMAIL.COM as RTFs, JPGs or as simple email text with links to your MP3 or video files. Be sure to include links to your website, blog, Twitter, Facebook, etc., as well as your account of the extraordinary work you are offering us. We look forward to your genius.

Tomorrow, Vicky kicks off our celebration of creative women who inspire. If you have a woman you'd like to celebrate, contact us and we'll give you a spot.