“Specimen”

February is Women in Horror Month (recently changed to March). My love for the horror genre goes way back, before I began voraciously reading. It likely developed the moment my parents told me to go back in my room as they sat down to watch Poltergeist. Instead, I did what any curious and rebellious six-year-old would: I snuck out, crawling on all fours, and watched Poltergeist, terrified from behind my dad’s recliner. Though I couldn’t sleep for a week after, I was addicted.

In a lovely bit of astrological alignment, my horror story “Specimen” came out in Trembling with Fear today. You can read it for free here. This is massive and deliciously circular to me because I remember when I was a wee babe of writing and putting my short, horror work out there, Trembling with Fear was one of the first venues I came across. It is such an honor to be included.

Here is how Editor Stephanie Ellis introduces it:

“First up this week is Specimen by Ashley B. Davis, a hauntingly atmospheric story of an abandoned naturalist on an island uninhabited by humans. His obsession with the specimens he is observing is gradually changed, roles reversing as he struggles to survive.”

Trembling with Fear

Looking for more ways to celebrate women in horror this month? Of course you are! You can read and listen to my other work by visiting my Published Works page, but here’s a quick rundown of my most recent publications. You can listen to me reading my poem “Time Consuming” at Liquid Imagination or listen to a full-blown audio production of my story “Feud” at The Grey Rooms 😱 (my story starts at 19:54). I also spoke (awkwardly) at length about my story and the horror genre with the inimitable Brooks Bigley at The Grey Rooms Podcast in my Behind the Door interview. Lastly, if you enjoyed the naturalist protagonist in “Specimen”, you can read about another scientific-minded protagonist in my story “The Wake” at Jamais Vu.

Happy reading, listening, whatever poison you choose. May your month be full of wicked female wiles and all the horror.

The Self-Anointed Artist: My Audio-Produced Story “Feud” and First Author Interview

I have been following Amie McNee, creativity coach and book doula, on Instagram for some time. McNee encourages authors and artists to claim their creator title. The messages she writes to herself and to her followers are designed to systematically restructure our sometimes debilitating inner monologues about being a creator. Even in writing that last sentence, I had originally written “Her little messages”–McNee has taught me this is how doubt, negativity, and fear of others’ perceptions can alter and minimize the self we are striving to be.

I’ve always considered myself as someone who processes life through writing. I don’t get angry at someone and then write them into a novel to then put them through horrible trials. It’s a different kind of processing I undergo when creating art. It’s like I become a sieve, where the sand of any heavy emotion falls to the bottom and all of the bigger stuff like truth rises to the top (wait, do I know how a sieve works?). Though I’ve always instinctively resorted to this act of processing/creating, whenever I have thought of myself as ‘Artist’ or ‘Author’, I would always inwardly cringe, and I certainly never proclaimed myself aloud as such.

Years ago, I started this blog as a home for my creative works, a platform for a writer. I’ve always been more comfortable with calling myself a writer, because it so tidily sits beside reader and doodler. But to call oneself an “Author” is big. It comes with a truckload of connotation and entitled-sounding opinion, but I mentioned in an old post that declaring yourself the self you want to be by living as though you already are, is part of the becoming process. Even now, I feel resistance writing this post, worrying whether it is trite or whether it will resonate with anyone. But I couldn’t honestly share this milestone without talking about about everything I’ve had to fight against to get here.

All this to say, as soon as I changed my online presence descriptors to say “Author”, as soon as I anointed myself with that whole truckload of connotation behind it, that in and of itself didn’t make things happen for me, but it gave me the power to start opening those doors that had been there all along.

Image credit: Cassie Pertiet

Last year, I’d received the acceptance from The Grey Rooms Podcast for my most recently published work, a short horror story “Feud” (click here to listen; my story starts at 19:54). Since then, I have decided to self-publish a novel (more information on that soon!), scheduled a photoshoot for my author photo(!), and have been interviewed (listen to the interview here!) for the first time as an AUTHOR (notice I removed the quotations on that one 😏). I’m not saying that acceptance made those things happen. But my decision to proclaim myself certainly gave me the power to reach out and take what I wanted.

Writing this from the place of the final pass through of edits on upcoming debut release, where I am ripping my hair out, wondering if it’s as close to done as I thought, feels a little fraudulent, but it’s time to fly!

Let’s chat in the comments. Have you ever let yourself fall into this trap of self-denial? How did you anoint yourself?

A State of Gratitude

“Gratitude is a powerful emotion to use for manifesting because normally we feel gratitude after we receive something. So the emotional signature of gratitude means it has already happened.”

Dr. Joe Dispenza

And maintaining a state of gratitude creates an environment conducive to receiving what you want, because energy takes the path of least resistance. It’s science (😏).

I am grateful.

I am grateful for the warmth of my children in my arms, dense with blood and breath and bone–solid, squeezable, kissable. I am grateful for their cough and my gritty eyes from being kept awake by their cold, because it means their bodies are strong enough to fight to keep them healthy. I am grateful for soft and swelling music and lyrics that bring tears to my eyes. I am grateful for the turn of summer to fall at night and the wind whispering through the trees. I am grateful for the cold sip of a beer, the hot sip of black coffee, and the cool sip of clean water. I am grateful for the look of understanding–almost telepathic in nature–shared with my partner over the heads of our children. I am grateful for light falling through the shades, striated and languid–the sun has yet to die; we get to have another day. I am grateful for snuggly cats seeking me out in quiet moments (it’s pretty much guaranteed that if you have cats and lay down with a book, a cat will manifest on your chest). I am grateful for the soreness of muscles that have worked hard and dry, worn hands–a working creator’s hands.

I am grateful for the books I can get cozy with and lost in (The Heart’s Invisible Furies and The Darkness Outside Us right now). I’m grateful for the movies and shows that fill up my well, for the memories of my father that come to me when I watch Star Trek: Next Generation–he was a sci-fi and fantasy geek like I am now, and I never realized that before. I am grateful to keep finding books and film and art and music to enjoy because it means the hunger inside of me is infinite. And it means the hunger inside others is infinite. And it means that I will never run out of experiences that let me feel connected to other human beings and their voices and stories.

I am grateful for the people giving me the opportunity to work with them and the venues who have published and will publish my own attempts to connect with other humans. The Grey Rooms Podcast accepted my first short story (twenty drafts later, mind you), and I will get to hear that story being given life.

I am grateful for the girl who used to come home from working two and three jobs while going to school full time to burn the midnight oil writing crappy stories. For the person who continues writing with a demanding day job and two 5-year-olds. The stories are still crappy sometimes, but I am grateful for them, grateful for the passion and my patience to continue working with them, to mold each story into its final form.

I am grateful for the story I am molding right now.

Time Consuming

I’ve been watching YouTube videos reading about manifestation through parallel realities, how envisioning what you want as reality can manifest it. Well, at the risk of sounding like someone who just joined a cult, it worked. Liquid Imagination published my poem, Time Consuming, today! I love this poem and the little monster inside me that whispered these words. You can read it AND listen to it for free (shout out to my husband for all of his EQ-ing and recording program wizardry)! I feel like this poem and the beast at the heart of it exquisitely translates to audio. This publication is extra exciting, because I’ve always wanted to be a voice actor or audiobook narrator. Don’t worry. I’m not one of those weirdos who is immune to hearing my voice on a recording. See tweet below for evidence.

Me, everytime I hear a recorded version of myself (ie as others must hear me) pic.twitter.com/gfAmxHqRFu

— Ashley B. Davis (@shleyBdavis) July 9, 2017

But I do enjoy reading aloud. I’ve always been faster at understanding what I’m hearing than silent reading. I will say though, after twelve takes of this poem, I appreciate how much work goes into audiobooks.

In my last post, I suggested some different mediums to celebrate Women in Horror Month. For more ways to commemorate, check out Annie Neugebauer’s 9 Ways to Celebrate Women in Horror Month on Lit Reactor. In keeping with Annie’s third way to celebrate this month, I have to give a shout out to another woman in horror who gets me to my desk every Sunday morning to dabble in my dark proclivities: Carie Juettner. We met back in 2013, and our history just goes to show that online friendships can be just as strong. We’ve exchanged snail mail, attended a horror conference together, and traded our horror stories, novels, and poetry over these last six years. Check out her poem Night Walk in Dreams & Nightmares and her shudderingly good story Makeup, which you can listen to on Tales To Terrify. The narrator is fantastique!

To close out Women in Horror Month, I also want to share my first ever published work, The Insolubility of Nightmares, published by Hello Horror in 2013. Cutting a path for oneself in writing of any kind is an arduous, time-consuming process. Because of my publication today, three years since my horror flash, “The Wake“, and because I like circles, it seemed befitting to dedicate this post to the friendly person and fierce writer who inspired me to first submit my work, Annie Neugebauer.

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If you checked out my first poem, The Insolubility of Nightmares, or read/listen to my new poem, Time Consuming, I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Finding Peace in the Little Things

Image by natural artist, Andy Goldsworthy

Today is one of those glorious days where writing just flows out of me–including a blog entry! So I wanted to stop and appreciate the little things that make all of this worth it–‘this’ being the hell I’m enduring with my rewrite. >_<

A highly underappreciated little thing is the magic of finding a story’s first words. “At Twilight” is a WIP that has been restlessly rolling around in my head for almost a year now  (you can read more about it on my Finished and Unfinished Works page). Though I was so excited about it, I could not bring myself to sit down and start the dang thing. And today, out of the blue the first line came to me:

“Vivian started drinking her coffee black after Jimmy died.”

This pic I took suits “At Twilight” so well

After this first line arrived (it doesn’t sound like much but I was pretty damn excited about it), swiftly followed by the story’s first two paragraphs, I let myself shamelessly revel in the Republic-esque adage: “I was born to be a writer”. There is an inexplicable peace that overcomes you when you realize you are doing precisely what you’re supposed to be doing. Cheesy I know, and I do not believe that people have to be born with a talent to hone it, but let’s just accept it for now and move onto the productivity these positive moments engender.

My second poem, “The Order of Felis Domestica“, is slated for publication in the fall issue of From the Depths, enticingly entitled “The Space Between”, from Haunted Waters Press.

Click the pic to submit your own work for consideration!

Here’s what this issue entails, taken from the website:

“The Fall 2014 issue of From the Depths will feature visually artistic works blending both the real and the fantastic to create a stunning and unique look at the ordinary.  Explore the spaces between dreaming and waking, truth and fabrication, reality and illusion. Experimental literature,  surrealism, and  magical realism desired, but not essential.  We seek a range of works from the sublime to the quirky, the nostalgic to the profound, the familiar to the distinctive and haunting. “

For those of you who’ve read my work (Elle Kurz and Carie Juettner basically) you know this is my favorite kind of writing–the stuff from the spaces between. This literary magazine is a beautiful, well-organized effort by editors, Susan Warren Utley and Savannah Renée Spidalieri. You can check out the gorgeous “The Objects of our Desire” issue that just came out June 26th here.

Lastly, I want to nominate for the underappreciated “little things” that moment when a poem springs out of your head that had been squeaking around up there for months, days, or hours and it’s suddenly like the hinges have been oiled, because everything just swings together. The most recent poem that was born in this fashion has been entered with two others to the first of four contests I plan to enter this year. I was also able to encourage my best friend/critique buddy, the aforementioned Elle Kurz, to make her first submission to this contest as well. 🙂 Whether or not either of us wins or gets accepted, this is still one step of many toward the dream we’re both already living: writing. That’s why it’s important to appreciate the small–though oftentimes magnificent–pleasures; because sometimes in the thick of it, we can’t see the forest for the trees (God, I’ve used an awful lot of clichés here). Though we may not win this or that contest or get this or that poem published right now, we’re still building the dream word by word every day. And each word makes it reality.