Ash Vale Updates: September 2024
Things that Happened
This is accidentally becoming a Chappell Roan fan newsletter but a new 6-week session of my pole dancing class just started and our choreography song is Pink Pony Club, I’m truly living my best life
I was on a super fun panel this past weekend with my friend V.M. Ayala, and Mike Underwood (established TTRPG producer and writer for the Critical Role TTRPG?!) for Flights of Foundry where we talked about how to run a TTRPG Actual Play! It was really fun even though I felt totally out of my depth.
I also got to attend a few FoF panels and chats with very cool people!! I particularly liked a panel about magazine publishing and what makes people get into it in the first place (the answer is audacity), and then a couple “chill with the author” sessions that were just really casual and had great vibes.
Writing
Out Now
My debut story “I Met My Wife in the Woods” came out in July and became free to read at the beginning of this month (you can read it here if you haven’t yet)! I mention it again because it was just included in a Reactor Magazine roundup of “must read speculative fiction” which is frankly shocking and I did a double-take when I saw my name! https://reactormag.com/must-read-short-speculative-fiction-august-2024/
Coming Soon
My story about a devil woman and her harpy partner was accepted in a forthcoming ‘goblincore’ anthology from Prairie Soul Press! It will be print only I believe, and I don’t have details on when it will be released but best believe I’ll tell all of you as soon as I know (or in the next newsletter I guess)
In Progress
Short fiction has been really slow this month, because -
I made a commitment to myself that I really want to finish at least a 70k first draft of my romance novel by the end of the year! I made a spreadsheet to track progress and it’s really lit a fire under my ass. I’m nearly at 45k words so I’m totally on track which is exciting and also terrifying. The downside is, if I finish it, I have to do more drafts? Which feels illegal and also unfair.
My Recs
Books
The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones was SO GOOD holy crap. It’s an Indigenous horror/thriller story that ties in all these concepts of vengeance, and cultural identity, and whose lives are considered worthy. The main characters all just reminded me of folks I grew up with, too, so it had kind of a nostalgic element for me that struck a chord.
A few months ago (maybe a year? what is time) I read the first book in Becky Chambers’ Monk and Robot novella duology, A Psalm for the Wild-Built, and absolutely LOVED it. So this month I finally read the second book, A Prayer for the Crown-Shy, and what a satisfying conclusion to this little story. This series is post-apocalyptic solarpunk and it is so uplifting and beautiful. It made me want to live in their world!
Short Stories
A Tapestry of Dreams by Victor Forna in Apex Magazine, who is easily becoming one of my favourite short story authors, is my first rec this month. This piece is a heartbreaking dive into chronic illness, family ties, and a choice between staying and going when choosing to stay means choosing pain.
Exist for someone other than me. Exist for yourself. I give you permission to let me die.
Continuing in the accidental theme of other dimensions or worlds is Three Things That Happen the Night My Dad Dies by Isabel Cañas, in The Deadlands. This is a very short piece about a woman’s dad who dies several different deaths and keeps returning - it stood out to me because of the love this character clearly has for her father, and for the last scene in which she reveals what might be the actual ending. It was very powerful!
The night my dad dies, he’s not my dad—he’s fifteen years old, fluffy-haired and lean, and he’s sneaking through the neighbor’s backyard with a friend.
Finally, I have a bizarre and disturbing horror story from Nightmare Magazine - Grottmata by Thomas Ha, which is loosely inspired by the Japanese occupation of Korea in the early 1900s. The story unfolds mainly through the eyes of a young woman existing in an occupation, and tells a story of colonization, resistance, and the monsters created through experimentation and despair.
It begins late one night, when I think I’ve woken, to find eight widened eyes staring at me in a way that feels accusatory. She touches my lips, gently at first, and then with more pressure as she pries apart my mouth.
Music
This is deeeeefinitely not going to be for everyone (sorry) but one of my current favourite metal bands, Spiritbox, just put out a new single and it goes SO HARD
Something Extra
I agree with this tweet, that’s all
Thanks for reading, and don't let the monsters under your bed get you, unless you're into that! I don't judge!
Ash Vale (they/them) is a queer, non-binary, neurodivergent cryptid writing short stories in horror and fantasy, and working on a sapphic romance novel.