ESSAYS, SHORT STORIES, AND MORE ...
Ashley’s essays and short stories have been commissioned by and included in a number of journals and anthologies. Details of these publications – and links to some – are listed here:
- "Eucalyptusdom: Beyond the Garden Palace", a catalogue essay and literary interpretation for a landmark MAAS exhibition on-show at the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, through 2021 to 2022. Details about the catalogue are available here
- "Crossing the Line: Unknown Unknowns in a Liminal Tropical World", the lead essay for Griffith Review 63: Writing the Country. This essay was supported by an Arts Queensland Griffith Writing Fellowship
- "A Reckoning", an introduction to the new Text Classics edition of Amy Witting's splendid novel, A Change in the Lighting. This essay was also extracted by Sydney Review of Books
- "Walking Towards the Future", a letter for the "Women of Letters" series ("To My Fork in the Road"), was included in Signed, Sealed, Delivered, the seventh collection of this beautiful correspondence edited by Michaela McGuire and Marieke Hardy. You can read a lovely review of this collection here
- "What Happens Next", an extract from a new novel-in-progress, published in Griffith Review 52: Imagining the Future (2016)
- "The Bus Stop", an essay accepted by Creative Nonfiction for their issue on The Weather (and runner-up for their essay competition for that issue), this piece was subsequently reprinted in Island magazine and selected for Best Australian Essays 2016
- "The Forest at the Edge of Time", the cover story for the annual environment issue of Australian Book Review - you can read the beginning of the essay here. This essay was written under the auspices of the Dahl Trust/ABR Fellowship - see here for more information about the Trust and its work. An edited version of this essay was later awarded the 2016 Bragg/UNSW Press Prize for Science Writing and selected for inclusion in this year's Best Australian Science Writing
- "Mirror Rim: Lost and Found in the Abrolhos", reportage published in Griffith Review 47: Looking West (2015) - this piece was selected for inclusion in Best Australian Essays 2015
- "Adaptation: A Work in Progress", an essay, published in Griffith Review 45: The Way We Work (2014)
- "Dry Clean", a short story, published in Island 136 (2014)
- "The Cat", a short story, published in the Review of Australian Fiction vol. 4, issue 6 (2013): “The Cat” was also included in Best Australian Short Stories 2013
- "A Single Book: Poemas", an essay, published in Five Dials, no. 28 (2013: scroll down to p. 47)
- "The Crow", a short story, published in Best Australian Short Stories 2012. This was an extract from an earlier version of A Hundred Small Lessons.
- "Walking Underwater", a memoir, published in Griffith Review 35: Surviving (2012)
- "Elsie's House", a short story, published in Griffith Review 34: Annual Fiction Edition (2011). This short story grew – slowly – into A Hundred Small Lessons.
- "The Sun Rising", a short story, published in Griffith Reivew 30: Annual Fiction Edition (2010) - this was the first published extract from The Railwayman's Wife
- “Gunpowder and Shooting Stars”, an essay, published in Island 120 (2010)
- “The Singular Animal: On Being and Having”, an essay, published in Brothers & Sisters (edited by Charlotte Wood; Allen & Unwin, 2009)
- “Eucalypts”, an essay, published in Australian Greats (edited by Peter Cochrane; Random House, 2008)
- “Where the Wild Things Are”, an essay, published in Griffith Review 21: Hidden Queensland (2008)
- “On the Edge”, an essay published in Where the Rivers Meet, a special Australian issue of Manoa: The Pacific Journal of International Writing (2007)
- “The Photograph”, a short story, published in Confessions and Memoirs: Best Stories Under the Sun vol. iii (edited by Michael Wilding and David Myers; Central Queensland University Press, 2006)
- “Every Colour of the Rainbow”, an essay, published in Heat: 12: Ten Years (2006)
- “The Importance of the Snuffleupagus: Reading, Writing and Imaginary Friends”, an essay, published in When Books Die (edited by Julian Davies; Finlay Lloyd, 2006)
- “Ultramarine” , an essay commissioned for A Place on Earth (edited by Mark Tredinnick; UNSW Press, 2003) and anthologised in The Writers’ Reader (edited by Susie Eisenhuth and Willa McDonald; Cambridge University Press, 2007) and The Best Australian Essays 2003
- “Killing Lord Byron”, a travel piece, published in In Transit (edited by Michael Duffy; Duffy & Snellgrove, 2001)
- “Memory Palace” and “Rape Crisis”, two essays published in DIY Feminism (edited by Kathy Bail, Allen & Unwin, 1996)
- “Firespell”, a short story, winner of the Banjo Paterson national fiction competition (1994)
- “Angel to Zoo”, a short story, winner of the Sydney Morning Herald / Dymocks open fiction competition (1993)
- “Blue and White Photography”, a short story, published in Southerly, vol. 53, no. 3 (1993)