Featured Interview With Ashleigh Gauch
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
My parents worked for Kiewit Construction, so growing up we moved around Washington a lot. I was born in Seattle and lived there until I was 12, then moved to Covington, then Omaha, then back to Seattle when I turned 18.
Now I live in a little suburb called Des Moines, spitting distance from the airport. My hubby and I share our home with two rats (Radar and Fidget), a twelve year old cat named Luna, and a grumpy cichlid named Odin.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I wrote my first poem at six years old. My mother tells stories of me “reading” by memorizing books and chiding my grandfather when he’d deliberately change the words. I can’t remember a time I didn’t have my nose stuck in a book, and I was rewarded for all my random drafting with my first poetry publication at ten.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I have to pick? All right.
My favorite authors are Stephen Graham Jones, Margaret Weis, Stephen King, Susan Kaye Quinn, Garth Nix, Robert Jordan, Clive Barker, Josh Malerman, Jeff VenderMeer, Richard Thomas, Rudolfo Anaya, and Warren Fahy.
My favorite genres are all in the speculative umbrella: science fiction (especially space opera and cosmic horror, less so military sci-fi), epic fantasy/dark fantasy, young adult fantasy (especially Keys to the Kingdom by Garth Nix), and most types of horror.
If I had to pick my biggest inspiration, it would have to be Garth Nix. I went through three copies of his Abhorsen Trilogy and two of the standalone Shade’s Children from re-reading.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
Diary of the Hollow is an experimental novella about a schizophrenic teenage girl who moves to Washington after a messy divorce. Like most teenagers who move in the middle of high school, she finds herself a social pariah within weeks of starting school. From the moment she arrives in Qualicum, Washington, she finds reality is a bit..off.
Unsure if what she’s experiencing is a deepening of her psychosis or a genuine supernatural experience, she agrees to the deal the new voice offers her…and gets more than she ever bargained for.
One of the early reviewers compared it to Stranger Things, two more called it Mean Girls meets Lovecraft. I’d tend to agree. It’s an interesting mesh of psychology, cosmic horror, and a teenage coming of age story.
This book took me about three months to draft and edit, but was years in the making as far as development goes. I loved the drafting process, and fell in love with each of the characters. Let’s just say you’ll be seeing a lot more of Dasha in the rest of the series.
I had a good friend growing up who had schizophrenia, and the depictions of Dasha’s symptoms in the book are based on interviews with her from before she died. I guess you could call Diary a tribute of a sort.
It’s told in the form of diary entries from each of the three internal voices plus Dasha, and I had a ton of fun writing each of the “characters.” Carol in particular was a hoot, but you’d have to read it to find out why. It’s only $0.99, so what do you have to lose? 😉
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