Author: M. Ashley

Essayist and poet, my work has been rejected by some of the finest journals in America. Fortunately, it also gets accepted from time to time and has appeared in equally fine journals such as Word Riot, Inlandia, Brew City Magazine, and SageWoman among others.. In 2002, I was awarded the Academy of American Poets Prize for Vanderbilt University. For no good reason, I possess an unnecessarily dark humor which is why being third generation California Inland Empirian delights me so. My gods are weird. I once received $350 for writing a smartassed essay on “why the wise use of water is important in my daily life”. I am undoubtedly the Greek god Hermes’ special snowflake. I’m pretty sure I got into college via a series of fortuitous clerical errors. When I had to grow up and get a real job, I decided against it and stayed a writer. I have worked many odd—and I mean odd—jobs to support my habit: Commercial writer for country music hopefuls, resume massager, WalMart fitting room attendant and switchboard operator, telephone psychic.
Personal Essay

Wild and Considering a Haircut

Posted on by M. Ashley

My hair is gorgeous with platinum curls absolutely everywhere. It can also be the wildest white afro you’ve ever seen. There are frizzy parts and curly parts and parts beat straight from being slept on. When I wake up, I often look like Einstein in dire need of a haircut. 

It’s been getting on my nerves lately. It’s always in my face and sometimes even in my food. It gets caught in my purse strap. It gets under my watch band. It gets in my eyes. It gets in my mouth, even without being food-borne. 

Also, it’s hot under this thing. Seriously hot. I don’t need another reason to sweat and I sweat into this pelt all the time. 

The wildness, at times, is inconvenient, but I do love it. The problem has been that it can’t be wild without being in the way. Wildness is meant for the wilderness, not my civilized lips. 

A common symptom of depression among women is the desire to cut off all of one’s hair. I’ve dabbled in those thoughts many times, but my hair is my glory, like the Bible kinda says, and the Lord himself might weep if I got rid of it. 

I’ve decided to give it an out-of-my-face wilderness all its own.

I’ve decided on a pixie cut, even though I look nothing like a pixie in the face, or, ahem, in the body. I’m more like a bumble bee. I will give it the top of my head and the great heavens above to roam around and howl in. I will put some unnecessarily expensive crap in it after I shower, run my hands through, and let it go. If I’m going to look like Einstein anyway, I might as well not be a shabby one.

I have only a few requirements:

I want something undomesticated that doesn’t even look like it needs to be domesticated. 

I do not want to come out butch.

I do not want to look like a boy, (terrible experiences with that when my mom chopped all my hair off when I was little and every stranger called me a he.)

I don’t want ever to have to spend more than a few minutes styling it, but no styling at all would be preferable. 

Low maintenance baby. Low maintenance. I’m a low maintenance broad who needs a low maintenance do. (You’d think I would be able to type “maintenance” by now with no mistakes, but no. “Maintenance” is a lot higher maintenance than one might think.)

I love the look of wild, straight punk cuts, but I’ve got curly girl, curvy girl, girly girl written all over my scalp. We’ll get as wild as we can. We’ll get as far away from my watch band as we can. Wildness makes no promises.

-M.

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Writing On Writing

Gender Bias Among Women Writers

Posted on by M. Ashley

Usually when we speak of gender bias, the first thing that comes to mind is the literary feats of old dead white dudes still controlling the standards by which works of literature are measured today, regardless of the author’s race, gender, socio-economic status, etc. Or we speak of the white guys who are still alive and kicking having an upper hand in getting grants, getting agents, getting published, getting attention, getting press, getting prizes, getting better grants, and round and round we go. But the gender bias I want to talk about is far more insidious. Those things I mentioned earlier certainly create a problem that needs to be addressed, but there is a pernicious undercurrent of another form of gender bias among writers that can potentially harm their efforts so early on that they will never get past the very early stages of publishing, let alone into the realm of real recognition, regardless of the depth of their talent. This gender bias has directly to do with the quagmire of questions that are: What does and what does not make a woman? What does and what does not make a man?

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Writing Advice, Writing On Writing

Hot and Sweet

Posted on by M. Ashley

My ancient fiction professor at Vanderbilt once told us about a man he knew who drank Dr. Pepper hot. When work was over, this man would get into his after-fives and stir it in a saucepan over low heat, delicately, like he was handling milk. “Sometimes,” Professor Sullivan said, “it’s all right to let your characters take life a little too far.”

-M.

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Fears, Writing Life, Writing On Writing

Writers’ Insecurity: Give Me 20

Posted on by M. Ashley

I am not a long-write poet and suspect, by nature, I never will be. Most of the time, I see much more value in longer works than in what I produce, (read as: “most of the time I see more value in what everyone else in the world is doing except me”). In this insecurity, I am like a child who stubbornly believes ten one dollar bills will always be worth more than one twenty dollar bill.

A friend of mine once told me he doubts I have the attention span for long-write. Possibly. More likely though, I’ve got an addict’s taste for hit-and-run.

-M.

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Fears, Writing Life, Writing On Writing

Some People Call It “Terminal Uniqueness.”

Posted on by M. Ashley

It’s crazy how these old worries keep coming back. In my mind I’m in a poorly lit room. I look down at my own work and think, pouting, “But my work doesn’t sound like other people’s work. My work doesn’t sound like what’s in the literary journals and magazines.” It’s true, but why I automatically jump to the conclusion that this is a bad thing is beyond me. I may have trouble finding a home, but when I do, it will be the right home, the Goldilocks home. Maybe I’ll find several.

The only thing I must absolutely not do is write what I think I should sound like rather than writing what I actually sound like. My poetry and essays look and sound how it looks and sounds in my mind. That’s a good thing because I’m the only one who has my mind. For the world’s sake, that’s an excellent thing.

-M.

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Misc Poetry, NaPoMo, Poetry

Dogs (NaPoMo Day 5)

Posted on by M. Ashley

Dogs have races. Dogs have war.
Dogs have Shakespeare.
I think someone ate a dog in some
Shakespeare play.
I got that from a movie where a teacher
taught Shakespeare.
Simulacra upon simulacra
the coolest concept in sociology.

I see a dog in a meadow. He is well cared for.
Sometimes when we think of dogs
we get a pain in the pit of our stomachs because
we think of dogs being mistreated.
Innocence makes us fear guilt.
Little children sing creepy songs in horror movies
give us the chills.

Serial killer has the heart of a child.
Animals are innocent.
Shark seeks food and procreation
the height of evolution.
Lamb of God doesn’t bleat
on the bloody altar.

-M.

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Humor Poem, NaPoMo, Poetry

Around the World in 20 Taboos

Posted on by M. Ashley

Cow meat. Shellfish.
Touching pork and alcohol.
Red lipstick on strict Baptist women.
Entering the temple with your street shoes on.
Walking on your mother’s white carpet
with your street shoes on.
Genital piercing. Genital mutilation.
Showing your face. Showing your ankles.
Cutting your hair.
Sex. Porn-a-plenty. Masturbation.
That one kink no one talks about.
Having other gods before me.
Cooking cabbage in the office microwave.
Dishonoring the corporation.
Tattooing little children blue with bush thorns.
Cultural relativism.

-M.

(The prompt was “taboo.” I knew at some point I would find a use for my sociology degree.)

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