She is the co-host of James and Ashley Stay at Home, a podcast about writing, creativity and health, and was a judge in the 2020 Writing NSW Varuna Fellowship.

In 2022, Ashley has been an artist in residence at Bundanon, and on fellowship at KSP Writers’ Centre. Her Armenian travel memoir was shortlisted for the 2018 Impress Prize for New Writers and the 2017 Kill Your Darlings Unpublished Manuscript Award, and received a 2015 Varuna PIP residency.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 and the National Young Writers’ Festival, and is a Moth StorySLAM winner.

She also teaches a range of creative writing courses and mentors emerging writers. She has a decade of experience in teaching and curriculum design, working with children and adults, and has a Master of Research in creative writing.

Before moving to Australia, Ashley 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.

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Ashley lives on the lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation and pays respect to the Traditional Owners of country throughout Australia, and First Nations peoples everywhere.

Headshot credit: Marnya Rothe