Ashley Kalagian Blunt is the author of My Name Is Revenge, a literary thriller novella and collected essays described as ‘gripping’, ‘unflinching’ and ‘a gritty story of justice denied’. Peter Stanley notes it as ‘a fine example of why history matters’. My Name is Revenge was a finalist in the 2018 Carmel Bird Digital Literary Award, and was shortlisted for the 2019 Woollahra Digital Literary Award.
Ashley’s writing appears in Griffith Review, Sydney Review of Books, the Australian, the Big Issue, Westerly, Kill Your Darlings and more.
Her Armenian travel memoir was shortlisted for the 2018 Impress Prize for New Writers and the 2017 Kill Your Darlings Unpublished Manuscript Award, and received a 2015 Varuna PIP residency.
Ashley is an award-winning speaker. She’s appeared at Sydney Writers’ Festival, Story Club, Little Fictions, the National Young Writers’ Festival and Noted Festival, and is a Moth StorySLAM winner.
She has a decade of experience in teaching and curriculum design, working with children and adults. She completed a Master of Research in creative writing and has previously lived and worked in Canada, South Korea, Peru and Mexico.
Visit her writing portfolio for more.
Full of Donkey
The Armenian language lacks the a sound ‘Ashley’ requires. (This pronunciation issue is why flash mobs in Armenia become the rather more intimidating ‘flesh mobs.’) So when she spent two months travelling through Armenia, everybody called her Eshley. Unfortunately, esh means donkey, and the suffix -li means full of. Ashley was, in Armenian, Full of Donkey.
Now Full of Donkey is where she posts updates on her work, events, and life with chronic fatigue syndrome.
