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The Shop is Open!
It’s been a little over a week since A Body Made of Weather went out into the world, and I’m still sitting with that particular mix of relief and disbelief that comes after a release, the one where you’ve spent so long inside a book that letting go of it feels a little like losing a limb, and gaining one, all at once. So here’s… Continue reading
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After
Lo and behold, it has been 9 months since I last wrote anything for my blog, to no one’s surprise, I am sure. 2024 was a blur with many good things (In January alone, I got engaged and released a new poetry book), but the end of the year was… stressful. In the span of one month, I caught a horrendous and scary bout of… Continue reading
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Planting Love Letters
To my last love – there was a before. When in the shallow of the forest I dreamed of emerald and jade landing upon my tongue as it hungered for the canopy above, the taste of endurance. Craving, this shelter of olive survival. My hands were covered in honeydew as they reached for the tether of you. We rested our heads on beds of moss,… Continue reading
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The World Goes Down Slow
Well, I finally did the thing and completed the project that I started sometime in 2020 – I wrote a book and it will be released in two weeks on January 24th! I think I’m a bit in disbelief that this is even happening because while I’ve been writing since I was a very young child, there have been numerous times that I’ve lost myself… Continue reading
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A Room For My Halo
I have been slowly digging back into my current work-in-progress — a poetry collection that, I think, will have a theme that is representative of the past few years of my life. There have been many hard moments in those years. I isolated myself in the bottom of a deep well for quite a long time, my mind deteriorating from the strain of living in… Continue reading
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The Climb Towards Mindfulness
There is only continual motion. If I rest, if I think inward, I go mad. There is so much, and I am torn in different directions, pulled thin, taut against horizons too distant for me to reach. Swift, ceaseless pace. Will I never rest in sunlight again – slow, languid & golden with peace? Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath I picked back… Continue reading
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Stubborn Hope and Defiant Joy
Your hunger must be greater than your fear. V.E. Schwab, Open Discussion in Atlanta, GA; April 19, 2023 I had the pleasure of attending the conversation between V.E. Schwab and Mark Oshiro last month as they discussed all things writing as well as all things Addie LaRue in celebration of the release of Schwab’s paperback version of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. To no surprise, V… Continue reading
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Things I’m Trying to Come to Terms With
My brain is both my brain and not my brain, / at once wild and feral, / at once subdued and desperate. / The names I have answered to: / crazy, emotional, unpredictable and predictable alike, / too insert-verb-here. Acceptance / of every perspective and perception / but my own. / All the guilty pleasures / I no longer feel guilty about, / like the… Continue reading
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Chaos & Words
I’ve started and trashed a number of projects over the last six months, signs of increasing mania, to be sure, but also as distraction. I kept telling myself that each project was going to be my return to myself, my triumphant return to writing after a terribly long and broken hiatus. My chapbook was published last year, but I essentially stopped writing except for in… Continue reading
About Me
Hi, I’m Ash!
I’m a 30-something writer living on a 3400-acre bird sanctuary in South Carolina with my forester husband and two stepchildren. I earned an English degree in 2010 and remain an obsessive bibliophile who also enjoys being outdoors, adventuring, cuddling with my dogs (& cat!), and sipping on a hefty glass of wine. This lil space of the internet is one I hope to use in my journey to cultivate more creativity and general wordsmithing in my life. Welcome!