I was happy to receive an advance copy of Kathryn Aldridge-Morris’s debut flash collection, Cold Toast. Kathryn’s stories of women and girls are always compelling. I found the themes of power—and lack of power—especially moving in this collection. Each story builds on the previous one, bringing a nuanced glimpse into the challenges we faced in the 70s and 80s. Those of us who lived through those times might find a hint of nostalgia, through not only music and fashion callbacks, but also the remembered hopes and fears of a growing women’s movement. Electric stories of rebellion and compromise fill this volume. I enjoyed every one!
Huge thanks to Kathryn for answering my questions!
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Myna: First, tell us about Cold Toast! What themes do you explore?
Kathryn: Girlhood, womanhood, selfhood. Autonomy and loss. How certain cultural events of the 70s and 80s shaped our behaviour, relationships, and expectations. The collection merges into the 90s in the final stories, as my Everywomen start to contemplate what moving on might look like.
Cover art by Tim Mara: Portrait of Astrid, 1973
Myna: What’s unique about this book?
Kathryn: It has to be how the cover art and the stories speak to each other. So many of the images and symbols which appear in the stories also appear in Tim Mara’s incredible ‘Portrait of Astrid’; it’s like the entire collection could have been written in response to it. I will be forever grateful to my brilliant friends Alice and Emily—Tim’s daughters—for giving me permission to use it.
Myna: Which character is your favorite?
Kathryn: My 1970s Astrid—she so badly wants to fuck Gorgeous Leo who’s like a perfected Ringo Starr, but ultimately her friend Shirley and the Women’s Lib movement win out and she abandons him for a protest march.
Myna: When a reader finishes the last word in the book, what emotion will they be feeling?
Kathryn: Maybe a sense of defiance. Shit happens, but you see that shape through the fog out at sea? It’s a whole archipelago of possibility…
Myna: If your book had a theme song, what would it be?
Kathryn: I love this question! I’m gonna cheat and pick two. Blondie’s Atomic and The Bangles’ Hazy Shade of Winter—”Time, time, time – see what’s become of me…” I adored this song in my teens.
Myna: How would you describe your writing style, in general? Does that hold true for this book?
Kathryn: Spare, intimate, dry. My intention is for the darkest of my stories to always contain some element of humour. Especially the darkest. So yes, this holds true for this collection.
Even when it’s fiction we’re writing, a lot can be revealed in terms of our preoccupations as writers, and the way we deal with life. So, I suppose this exposes the way I’ve always used humour as a defence mechanism.
Myna: What’s your favorite thing about writing?
Kathryn: The hit you get when you’re freewriting and then by some alchemy the sentences start to shape themselves into something like a story.
Myna: What’s next for you?
Kathryn: I received Arts Council funding to write a novella-in-flash, so once the excitement of the launch is over, I want to get back into that headspace and finish it by the autumn. Oh, and I’ve just been invited to be a judge for the Leicester Short Story Prize, so I can’t wait to get stuck into the shortlist in August.
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Kathryn Aldridge-Morris is an award-winning writer based in Bristol, UK. Her debut collection of flash fiction Cold Toast is out with Dahlia Books in May 2025. You can discover more of her work at www.kamwords.com.
Find Kathryn on Bluesky.
Purchase Cold Toast at Dahlia Books.
Myna Chang 