A sociologist who learned that the best data is a story told honestly.

Hi. I'm glad you found your way here.

I'm Ashley — a writer, sociologist, and mother living in Bend, Oregon. For most of my adult life, I've been obsessed with the same question: why do we become who we become?

A Ph.D. in sociology gave me one set of tools to answer that question. Fiction is giving me another — and I find, more and more, that the novel is where the truest answers live.

If I can do it, so can you. I truly believe that — and I say it as someone who came to fiction sideways, through academic writing and long detours and a lot of fear.

On writing the novel

My debut novel, All She Gave to the Fire, lives at the intersection of contemporary fiction and emotional excavation. It follows the complicated love between a mother and a daughter — two women trying to understand each other across a gulf of things left unsaid, wounds inherited, and patterns that repeat whether we intend them to or not.

Generational trauma is a term that gets used a lot. I wanted to write a book that shows what it actually feels like — in the body, in the kitchen, in the silences between people who are trying to love each other well and don't quite know how.

It is, without question, the most personal thing I have ever made.

The life around the writing

When I'm not at my desk, I'm with my two kids (ages 2 and 4, which means the chaos is constant and the sweetness is staggering). My Cavalier King Charles Spaniel — cute, grumpy, deeply opinionated about walks — keeps me on a schedule that I would not otherwise maintain.

I accidentally-on-purpose eavesdrop at indie cafes for dialogue inspiration. I have mastered the art of getting lost in hidden bookstores and finding my way back home — usually. I make pour-overs that take too long and taste exactly right.