I’m an award-winning writer, exploring topics such as direct-to-brain digital text streaming for McSweeney’s and growing up with the digital revolution for Griffith Review. I’ve appeared at Story Club, the National Young Writers’ Festival, and Noted, and am a Moth StorySLAM winner.

I’ve written about the world history of genocide for the Sydney Review of Books, prejudice and intergenerational trauma for Griffith Review, and travelling in North Korea for Kill Your Darlings. I also review for the Australian.

My Armenian travel memoir was shortlisted for the 2017 Kill Your Darlings Unpublished Manuscript Award, and received a 2015 Varuna Fellowship.

I also write regularly for The Cusp and the Newtown Review of Books, and recently completed a Master of Research in creative writing. My current work-in-progress is How to Be Australian, a memoir. This project received a 2017 KSP Fellowship.

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 I spent two months travelling through Armenia, everybody called me Eshley. Unfortunately, esh means donkey, and the suffix -li means full of. I was, in Armenian, Full of Donkey. 

And now Full of Donkey is where I post comedy writing and updates on my work and events (or the lack of them).