Ash Vale Updates: July 2025

First thing’s first - I’ve mentioned a few times now that I’m one of the founders of a new queer speculative short fiction magazine, Otherside Spec. You can check out our Patreon, which is doing great, and we’ll open for subs in January 2026.

The news, though, is that the pre-launch for our Kickstarter just…launched? Do you launch a pre-launch? I don’t know, I’m sleepy. But right now you can check out our Kickstarter and sign up to be notified when we go live on October 1st!! Pre-launch signups help us a lot, because they can get us traction on Kickstarter and potentially get us on the front page or promoted when we do actually launch.

Also, I’ll be at WorldCon Seattle in August!! I’ll be bumming around, checking out panels and eating food. If you’re going and see me there, come and say hi!

Today’s newsletter is a bit shorter than usual because life has been really hectic, but at the end of August I’ll hopefully have a WorldCon wrap-up newsletter for you with some pictures.

Writing

On a slightly sappy note, I realized that exactly a year ago today (when this newsletter comes out) I had my first short story publication 😭 I’m still so proud of I Met My Wife in the Woods at Heartlines Spec, and I’ve been so lucky to be on this journey with really cool people around me, cheering me on. Here’s to more years of words!

Sales/Updates

Choices: An Anthology of Reproductive Horror will be out September 30th and my story “Fireweed, Ferns, and Moss” is in it! It’s a dystopian near-future set here in Alberta, where births are controlled by the government and rogue midwives will do everything they can to heal the earth.

“As the horrors close in around us, we turn to story to process our fears, our desires, and our futures. In Choices: An Anthology of Reproductive Fiction, nineteen writers whose reproductive rights are under threat explore the stories of those who, like them, have had their choices stolen from them.”

Pre-orders are open now!

My Recs

Books

I read a few books this month but my favourite was Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng by Kylie Lee Baker. A gruesome story of COVID-era anti-Asian racism, a serial killer, crime scene cleanups, and ghosts. I really enjoyed the way the author tied Chinese ghosts and their rituals into the story. I usually find ghost stories kind of meh but this was genuinely scary! Also, the ghost sort of ‘hunts’ in the dark and I was reading this at my doctor’s office one day and was fully absorbed, and the fuckin overhead light shut off on me. Nearly browned my pants. Anyway, great book!

Short Stories/Poems

I read this beautiful story from Somto Ihezue in Diabolical Plots and instantly knew it was going in the newsletter. It’s a story about the practice of killing twins in Nigeria because they were seen as a bad omen, and a woman who is pregnant with twins for a second time and won’t let the same fate befall her new children that did her first twins. It had my heart in my throat the whole way through, in this kind of parental panic and a sense of knowing you’d do whatever you had to to save your children. Truly heartbreaking and lovely.

Music

I’m a bandwagon Wet Leg follower who found them through their tiny deck recently, but their new album moisturizer has just been hitting so perfectly for me lately. It’s this kind of early 2000s femme indie style, with pretty pared-down instrumentation. I’ve had this song in particular on repeat!

Something Extra

Okay I really went back and forth with what to put in the music section above because I’ve been on SUCH a Bad Bunny kick lately, but I decided I’d just do what I want (as always) and put his tiny desk concert in this section! He’s a fantastic musician and I’ve had his newest album on in the background constantly lately. It’s just so smooth and listenable, and he’s ridiculously charismatic.

That’s all, and I’ll see you all at the end of August! Happy summer and may you be blessed with as many zucchinis as I am, send help