News

Look at these fancy ARCs!!!

First things first: LOOK AT THESE!!!!!

I am absolutely floored!!!!! In these moments, I make sure to pause and recall the grind; the waking up at 5am for months to squeeze in 200 words every morning before working long corporate/parenting shifts; the years of, We admire so much in this, it is good enough that we get what you were saying, and that has helped us decide we do not want to publish it; wondering, when do I accept this is never going to happen for me.

If you are there right now, let me be your warm invitation from the future to keep going.

Because you, too, might answer the door with dread anticipating what petty crime you have done against your wallet, and discover a box of your very own advance reading copies.

I will be running a giveaway in the near future, so please do stay tuned for that.

A few people have asked what is the best way to preorder Secret Lives—or any book. First, you are an angel, you are perfect for thinking of us. Second, the absolute best thing you can do for any author is preorder through your local indie bookshop! It makes them aware of the book, and more likely to check it out or stock it, and also means your local indie gets a little $$. Ecosystems, yall.

Otherwise, Bookshop.org is my preferred online purveyor, personally! The book is out March 2, 2027.

Published in Tractor Beam

I’m so thrilled my story, “The Origins of Lye,” was published in Tractor Beam this month! Tractor Beam is a soilpunk magazine with RANGE, and the rest of the work from this issue is still going live. I’m especially thrilled and grateful that the mega talented Vanilla Chi interpreted the story and illustrated it. Please follow Tractor Beam’s IG if you do IG so you don’t miss the rest of the stories!

We live on a forgotten volcanic island in an Asiatic sea. It is a darkly soiled place made darker by our ancestors’ penchant for burning boats, back when ships landed almost once a week.

The Volcano Daughters at the SFPL

What a treat to re-engage with my beloved, Gina María Balibrera, and her beautiful, heart-rending, harrowing, funny, tinge-of-magical book, The Volcano Daughters. Gina and I met in the Periplus Collective and instantly bonded, and I am endlessly grateful both to Periplus and for Gina!!

Edit: here is the link if you would like to watch it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qosSChAfHY

Sidenote, applications for 2027 Periplus close on Oct 11! It was life changing for us—could it be life changing for you? 💜

And now, our pep talk.

I know how to leisure perfectly

I have been trying to get off my phone and back into my notebooks again. Part of this includes binging internet-chaos kindred spirit Mia’s Digital Diary on Youtube, whose crow girlie vibe and topics I simply adore.

I was inspired thusly to create a “dopamine menu” to have easy low-scroll options on hand. I listed the things (painting! knitting!). In classic “yeah she’s really like that” form, I set out to categorize them based on why I do them, and chart them so I could pick the ones best suited to my mood.

I struggled with the chart. Expression, Relaxation/Leisure, and Upleveling were my main motivations. Relaxation and leisure felt opposite to Upleveling. And isn’t leisure a big part of why we take a big old scroll through Reddit or the ‘gram? I could not find a viable, positive opposite to Expression (...clenching one’s cheeks until thine jaw shatters...??), so I left it off. 

I dutifully put all my little activities in my chart. Maybe you can see where this is heading. 

Friends. The Relax/Leisure section was blank. 

I’m not exaggerating.

There was nothing there.

Is this why I am so tired? Do I simply not know how to leisure???

The facetious answer: simply? no. No, I do not.

I cannot stand getting manicures or pedicures and my preferred massage pressure is just short of nausea so I can feel my bad posture leaving my body. I do not like to lay on the beach. And, working as an author, I am never fully at rest with media, so there’s no empee brain relaxation there.

I am trying to come to terms with the fact that a) Sophie simply continues reading me to filth at every turn, and b) my form of leisure is not really about relaxation, and much more about restoration. A busy, ceaseless sort of recharging, versus laying various part of my body peacefully on slabs.

When I mentioned to folks, I am a baby ding-dong trying to learn how to leisure, like a dog learning to play, the response and energy surprised me:

• haha same
• wait, so did YOU learn how to relax? What’s the secret????
• haha same, and have you read this book? should we start a book club? shall we make it mandatory reading? oh no, am I trying to be the duke of relaxing?

...We did start a book club (thanks Misty, lol), and stressed out the few surrounding people in the chat who DID know how to properly ‘relax’. The book is Rest Easy by Ximena Vengoechea if you need it. And book club been helpful and connective, but I also remembered that I had veered away from the initial exercise I’d been meaning to do.

It was time to return to the Dopamine Menu. This time, it was less about getting off the hellscape carousel of doomscroll and instead chasing what I thought the phone provided: rest. 

And listen—if you are kinda depressed atm and have a design degree, this is the only natural result.

How to create a dopamine menu

Step 1: List out all the things that feel restorative to you. I did this long hand; I am trying to do most of my grittier thinking long hand (including the genesis of this essay actually!). To get real recursive, you’ll see writing long hand as one of the items on this list.

Sidenote, I have burned through 41 A5 size pages this week alone, so it is working.

Step 2: Organize these! I think any schema can work, as long as it is amusing and sensible to you personally. I decided to follow a typical ‘appetizer/main’ structure, with appetizer being quick things I can do without much fanfare, mains being things that required more effort, sides being things I could do alongside other things, and desserts being more blobby consumption activities. 

Step 2a: Pull out trends. It’s important to figure out commonalities of what’s on your list, as well as what is decidedly not on your list. I realized by doing this that as chaotic as I am, I prefer to restore my sanity with solo or 1:1 activities that do not provide much unpredictability or require me to stew in loud background noise. 

Step 3: Organize your items. The ol’ wireframe! Move things around until they feel nice. You can just do this with post its or whatever; it doesn’t have to be fancy.

Step 4: Make it something you love. I’m using Affinity for this. It’s free. Canva is fine, Creative Suite is fine, use whatever. Make this by hand, even! Why even touch a computer. Embrace your inner naughty goose!! 

I happen to have a small collection of cute little stamps. I love the whole fruit sticker trend, and I’m a sucker for little intricate sigils because I’m so painfully Chinese American. 

Anything you wanna put on your menu?? Please let me know if you do this!! And again, please give props to Mia of Mia’s Digital Diary, who has just the best energy. 

xo till next time,
Ash