Ash Vale Updates: October 2024
SPOOKY SCARY SKELETONS
art by @sweetbeanscomic on bluesky
The province I live in (Alberta) has a wave of anti-trans bills being shoved through by our shitfuck government so the image above is included in honour of that!! Eat shit Danielle Smith, I hope both sides of your pillow are always warm!!
Things that Happened
I changed newsletter providers so if things look different, that’s why! I was having lots of technical issues with the first provider so I’m trying out a new one. Shouldn’t really affect much on the subscriber side but let me know if anything is too weird (like, weird in broken ways, not just ‘hey why would you put that in a newsletter’ ways). All my old posts can still be found here if ever you want to see them for some reason!
Writing
Coming Soon
My harpy/witch story about feral animal children will be published November 19th with Prairie Soul Press! It’s in a Goblincore anthology which just seems very appropriate for me. It’s (unfortunately?) print only but if you’d like a copy I’ll have the purchase link for you in the next newsletter!
In other publication news, a weird little flash piece I wrote about a horny water-dweller and a trans masc guy has found a home with Black Hare Press in an anthology called Bloodlust! The publication date will be in February 2025, and should be available in hard and soft covers, as well as digitally. I’ll put the pre-order link in the newsletter when it’s available! A tiny excerpt from my included story “Dread and Faith”:
It wasn’t until we were hastily retreating, clothes rearranged, that a shiver up my spine urged me to look back. I was frozen for a moment by the sight of shifting skin and pitch black eyes, watching me from just above the waterline. I blinked and it was gone.
In Progress
In honour of a themed submission call and it being spooky szn I wrote a really gay werewolf short story that’s packed full of religious trauma and monstrous feelings, my favourite things
50k words baybee!!! I’ve written 50,000 words of my romance book! I started my novel for Nanowrimo (rip) in 2023 and I’ve hit 50k words before November this year which is pretty rad! Still very on track to hit 70k words (and hopefully finish the draft) by the end of the year, YEET
My Recs
Books
I finished Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell this month and it was delightfully weird! It’s an (asexual) love story told through a literal monster’s perspective, and we get all kinds of gross body horror ways of her professing love for her human girlfriend who comes from a really fucked up, abusive family of monster hunters. I really liked that this was doing something so different than other things I’ve read recently. Recommend for sure!
Short Stories/Poems
First, a poem! The Witch Recalls Her Craft by Angel Leal in Uncanny Magazine is an absolutely stunning story of a witch who knows she was able to cast immense spells once, but who finds that now she doesn’t have the energy or the attention. This magical little glimpse into ADHD and not knowing what you’ve forgotten is so heartbreaking and real.
There must be a spell for this feeling, a rhythm
of incantations that can give me my life back.
Not youth, but the dreaminess of swamps & fireflies.
Not the freedom to create, but the balance of living
while dreaming.
Within the Dead Whale by Spencer Nitkey in Flash Fiction Online is…well, kind of exactly what the title says. This story is part of a ‘weird horror’ collection and boy does it deliver on that. I can’t really say much without spoiling it so I’ll just say there’s a dead whale, it’s got a hole in it, and within that hole the author has somehow packed feelings about dread, and parenting, and what we’ll do for our children.
They were here for the summer because he was a bad husband, and only the summer because he was a mediocre father.
And finally, Trees Can Have My Soul; in Return, Let Me Have My Grief by Rukman Ragas in khōréō magazine is a beautiful little short story about how grief brings people together, even if they’ve separated by both physical and cultural differences. This story almost reads like a poem to me, it’s so lyrical and lovely.
Under the towering Kannari trees, her grandmother’s body was tiny. Mhyrsa didn’t remember her as small. The woman who raised her was known for her loud opinions and persistent tantrums.
Music
Do you like weird songs about mouths and flaming gum and teeth? Then you might like this bizarre song from Sofia Isella that I’ve been listening to constantly lately
Something Extra
My new hobby (I know this is depressing, don’t @ me) is looking at interior design facebook groups and playing a kind of shitty “where’s waldo” to see how fast I can figure out if it was generated by an AI. This was my favourite recent one, enjoy!!
