Ash Vale Updates: January 2025
new year, worse me
Would you like to see a trans flag-coloured moth kitten? Of course you would. This is art from KM Steere, an illustrator who does fantastical animals. I’ve bought several of their prints over the years, and if you’d like one you can check them out here: https://linktr.ee/thekeymonster
Things that Happened
I think I forgot to announce this in the last newsletter, but I was chosen for a scholarship from the Horror Writers Association that will help me get to WorldCon Seattle this summer! I was so grateful and a bit shocked that I was picked, to be honest, but I’m very excited to make it down there and see some friends and meet new folks. And eat food, I like food.
There’s been a lot of posts circulating my various feeds lately about resistance, and support, and how to show up for the vulnerable in times of fascism. I don’t know if I have enough poignant words to say about all of that right now when things are so on fire, but I did read a really excellent BlueSky thread about what mutual aid means beyond GoFundMes and charity (which are also important). It’s worth a read but summed up a bit, it says: help your neighbours, give freely to others, and find and be part of local community. https://bsky.app/profile/gwensnyder.bsky.social/post/3lgqoqldnpc2g
Writing
Sales/Updates
I think I mentioned in a newsletter last year a story I wrote about placenta burial - well it just found a home!! It will be published in an upcoming (date TBA) anthology called Choices: An Anthology of Reproductive Horror. This felt like a long shot because my story didn’t feel super ‘horror’ to me, but clearly the editor thought it was horror enough so I’ll take it!
I believe my flash piece about a trans guy and a kelpie is coming out in a Bloodlust anthology on Feb 14 - I’ll include a link, etc in my next newsletter but I’ll also be posting about it on socials!
In Progress
I’m in a writing forum called Codex and I decided to participate in this year’s Weekend Warrior challenge, where for 6 weeks, each weekend you write a (max) 750 word story inspired by a set of prompts. It’s super fun so far! I can’t really reveal details of the stories until we’re done because it’s anonymous and I don’t know who reads this newsletter (spies everywhere!) but I’ll share some details once it’s all done.
I couldn’t wait on novel revisions LOL so I’ve started reverse outlining, which is a process where I read through my whole first draft chapter by chapter and take in depth notes on the scenes, issues, and gaps to fill. The intent is to then have a giant outline of your story so that when you start the next draft, you follow it quite closely with your own notes in mind to make it better. We’ll see how it works out, but I’m enjoying the process so far!
My Recs
Books
I read like, 4.5 books this month, who the fuck am I? One was an audiobook that I thought was a great idea until I deeply struggled with it and barely made it through, but hey. Anyway my two recs from what I finished are -
Make the Season Bright by Ashley Herring Blake, who writes the “Delilah Green Doesn’t Care” series. This book isn’t in that series (I don’t think?) but I actually liked this better to be totally honest! It’s a really sweet romance about two women who were engaged. One left the other at the altar, which sounds terrible, but five years pass and circumstances bring them back together and they’re forced to confront what happened. It was obviously unrealistic sometimes, like all romance, but I thought it had a sweet resolution.
And then my first 5 star read of 2025 - Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White. Holy shit, this book. Thanks to my friend (also named Ash, tragically) for telling me about this book because it was fantastic. This is a dystopian YA novel about a young trans boy who has been injected, by a group of religious fanatics, with a strain of a virus that’s meant to make him an angel. He escapes and finds a home with a group of queer misfits, but the transformation is underway and can’t be stopped. It’s full of body horror, betrayal, religious extremism, and trauma, and it was gripping the entire way through.
Short Stories/Poems
I love Seize the Press because they publish really unhinged stuff that speaks to me, and this piece was one of those for sure. This Movie Theater Sits on a Leyline by Maxine Sophia Wolff is a story about working in a movie theater, probably, if that movie theater was full of supernatural and gory things that keep happening. It’s bizarre and confusing, my favourite things to read.
The Hag of Beinn Nibheis is a beautiful, beautiful story from M. R. Robinson in Flash Fiction Online. We follow an elderly woman who goes up a hill to entreat with the hag who won’t allow spring to return, and who realises along the way that the hag may be missing something too. Just stunning prose and absolutely worth the 5 mins it will take you to read for its uncanny and unusual hopefulness.
Another magnificent little story this week is Set Alight by Toby MacNutt at Kaleidotrope, which follows a being whose shell is made of clay and who takes sunlight into themself to, it seems, disastrous consequences. A sci-fi mixture of sorrow and experimentation that really pulled at my heartstrings.
Finally, Life on Earth by Spencer Nitkey in Phano (a new short story magazine!) is great if you like crying. Do you like crying? Then read this story. It’s a story told in dualities, of someone losing the love of their life while the world discovers aliens that sound like music. It brings up so many poignant thoughts about what death is for those it leaves behind and I thought it had some gorgeous writing.
Music
This album is officially over 10 years old now which really feels…something!!! But this album and its title song have been a beautiful and angry background to my thoughts lately so I thought I’d share.
Something Extra
Loryn Brantz is an illustrator and poet who’s gained quite a following in the last few years for her poems about parenting especially, and she’s had some really poignant ones in the last couple of weeks. This one really got me in the heart as my own kid is about to turn two.
Leaving you this month on a slightly hopeful note, friends <3
