Ash Vale Updates: February 2025

Things that Happened

• It’s award voting season in speculative fiction land, in case you are a normal person who doesn’t know that (I wish I didn’t)! I had 2 award-eligible stories published in 2024! BUT I would really love it, if you are voting, if you took a look at my story I Met My Wife in the Woods at Heartlines Spec. It was my debut story and it’s got creepy fae, sapphic yearning, and an unreliable narrator!

  • Voting is currently open to anyone at Locus and though my story isn’t on their list, you can write stories in if that appeals to you! (closes April 15th I believe)

  • Voting is also open for the Nebulas, and I am on the eligibility list there! Voting is only open to SFWA members, and it closes Feb 28th (yes that’s today) https://www.sfwa.org/forum/reading/work/9256-i-met-my-wife-in-the-woods/

  • Finally, the Hugo awards are open for nominations if you attended WorldCon in Glasgow last year, or are attending in Seattle this summer.

• Politics feels, uh, sort of inescapable at the moment. It really do be there, haunting us, hey? Even putting aside the whatever the fuck is going on in the states (my condolences but also, hey! we’re catching strays here), provincially here in Alberta, our government is embroiled in a huge fucking scandal where they hired their buddies for private medical contracts, assuring everyone that this would cost less than the public equivalent that existed, and then it cost basically double the previous public deals, and also their friends get a nice cut of all of it! Wow. Much bargaining. Very above board, no corruption here, folks. Anyway fuck Danielle Smith and the UCP!! I hope their basements flood, and not in the fun way.

• On a much lighter note - I’ve been teasing something on Bsky for a few months now, about needing a space for queer SFF short stories, and…very soon I’ll get to say more about that, but let me just tell you that myself and some extremely cool people are about to launch a project that I am wildly, unbelievably excited about. There will be more details coming on March 1st on my BlueSky!

Writing

Out Now

• My story “Dread and Faith” is out now in the Blood Lust anthology from Black Hare Press!! It’s a very short little story about a trans guy who finds out his edible glitter is luring a freaky water dwelling creature, and instead of doing the reasonable thing and running away…he keeps trying to bring it back 😜 It’s available for purchase in eBook or print at the link below.

  • Also, small disclaimer - this is an erotic horror anthology! My story is not particularly NSFW (just suggestive) but there’s some outright erotica in here so if that’s not to your taste, I totally understand!

Sales/Updates

• My Norwegian troll story is coming out in, I believe, the March issue of Dreamforge magazine! I’ll post the links on my socials when it’s out and then include them here in the next newsletter too, as it should be free to read online at some point.

In Progress

• The Weekend Warrior writing challenge (writing a 750 word story each weekend for 6 weeks) is done!! I only managed 4 stories but honestly, that’s 4 stories I didn’t have before so I’m pretty pleased. They were all over the place content wise, ranging from an AI created for fetish content who starts to become sentient, to a scientific journal article about mushrooms that oopsie, begin to decompose living people. Hopefully one day some of them will be published!

• I’m done the reverse outline on the first draft of my novel!! Guh it took me longer than I thought because I signed up for the writing challenge above, but I got there in the end. Reading your own writing back is HARD - like I know you have to in order to edit, but at what cost? Luckily I still think the novel has something going for it, and now I get to start draft 2 where it gradually gets closer to a diamond on the poo to diamond scale that I just made up.

My Recs

Books

The me of January is gone. In their place is the me of February who decided reading fanfiction was better than basically anything else. What can I say, escapism works on me. Anyway I’m not recommending you fanfiction (yet), so here are two books I actually DID read and can recommend!

The Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong THIS IS SO FUCKING CUUUUUTE. It’s so cute! This came out pretty recently but I got some sort of zoomy library copy so I read it fast and loved it. It tells the story of Tao, a wandering fortune teller, who travels to little towns and tells peoples’ fortunes for money. She makes friends with some odd folks along the way who stick to her, whether she wants it or not, and they form a makeshift party. There’s magic, some intrigue, and finding friends in strange places. I thought it was just such a beautiful story for these times, a cozy fantasy that’s kind and uplifting and knows exactly what it is.

Uhh I hope I don’t get censored for this title, actually, but the other one I want to recommend is The Faggots & Their Friends Between Revolutions by Larry Mitchell. An odd little book, this is an examination of queer culture and gay men’s lives in the 70s told through parables of a society where gay men live in peaceful communes with women, women who love women, and some queer men, and they all are trying to resist The Men who are violent and war-hungry. It’s painfully relevant in some areas, and also irreverent and dated in others, but I think it’s still a fascinating read. If nothing else, it’s important to keep texts like this in circulation, because who knows, it might go back to being something printed out in peoples’ homes and passed around between friends instead of something I checked out from the library.

Short Stories/Poems

“Summoning an Eldritch Horror is all about boundaries.” Truer words have never been spoken. The Lonely Eldritch Hearts Club by Faith Allington in Flash Fiction Online is sort of funny, sort of wholesome, and very dark. It explores a dating site for people who have given up, in a way, and have decided instead to find an eldritch being to settle down with. I loved this, it’s witty and charming and unexpected.

I fuckin love a revenge story SO MUCH and this one is such a banger!!! How His Sins Caught Up to the Unpierceable Laoji by Wen Wen Yang in Small Wonders shows us Laoji, a general, who has the uncanny ability to control metal. There was a legend that a young boy from a certain town could manifest his same powers and make him weaker, so he killed all the young men they had so he could never be defeated. He hadn’t counted on a young girl and a fishbone, though.

Music

There’s been so much hype recently about Kendrick Lamar, for good reason obviously, but I wanted to give you all a throwback to the first album of his I ever heard back in 2012 and in particular, this song. I think Sing About Me, I’m Dying Of Thirst is maybe one of the best songs ever written. Told through different perspectives of people Kendrick came into contact with throughout the album, it’s just as relevant and prescient now as it was 13 years ago.

Something Extra

It’s that time again where I make you read poetry!!! I wrote this a little while ago when that “your body my choice” nonsense was circulating but after sending it a few places and not getting anywhere, I think it’s just too raw and unpolished for publication. So I’m subjecting all of you to it instead! Inspired by gross politics of gross men and also Goodbye Earl.

Content warnings for: murder, some body horror, and allusion to sexual assault

And I leave you with that disturbing imagery, friends! I hope you have a wonderful month despite all The Horrors.