The Worlds of Ashley Stangl

Five Magic Spindles has launched! I am officially a published author! I keep thinking I'll get used to that idea, but each step in the process has felt unreal. Now it's undeniable. "Out of the Tomb" has been published in a book--something I never thought I'd say when I started this story. Almost exactly a year ago, I stumbled across a Kindle sale for a novella collection called Five Glass Slippers . As a lover of fairy tale retellings, I thought the book was ingenious--five versions of "Cinderella", all gathered under one cover, each highlighting the original tale in a different way. It was the fastest purchase I've ever made, and one of the best. All the stories were enjoyable and unique retellings that captured my imagination. Then, at the back of the book, I found a single, fateful page: an announcement of a contest to fill a similar volume with retellings of "Sleeping Beauty". I'd never considered writing for contests before,...

Here I am again! I was tagged for the Quotation Tag by Rachel at Hamlette's Soliloquy. Thanks, Rachel! Now it's time for Day 3. Once again, the rules: Thank the person who nominated you  Nominate 3 new bloggers every day  Post a new quotation every day for 3 consecutive days.  Today, I'm continuing my theme of quotations by G.K. Chesterton, because there are just too many good ones to share. The first quote is from his book of apologetics, Orthodoxy , and specifically from the chapter "The Ethics of Elfland" , in which he outlines how fairy tales affect his understanding of the universe. Follow the link to read the whole thing, but I'll just share a lovely bit explaining the sense of wonder that fairy tales invoke.  This is proved by the fact that when we are very young children we do not need fairy tales: we only need tales. Mere life is interesting enough. A child of seven is excited by being told that Tommy opened a door and ...

I was tagged for the Quotation Tag by Rachel from Hamlette's Soliloquy. Thanks, Rachel! Here are the rules of the Quotation Tag again. Thank the person who nominated you  Nominate 3 new bloggers every day  Post a new quotation every day for 3 consecutive days.  Day One went well. Now it's time for Day Two, five days later. I understand that this is not following the rules of the tag, and I am humbled and ashamed. Nevertheless, I have returned with quotes for you!  Today's quotes come from this man. G.K. Chesterton, the man, the myth, the legend.  A writer in the early decades of the twentieth century, Chesterton wrote everything. Novels, poems, epic poems, plays, detective stories, biographies--the man was a fountain of words.  Reading Chesterton can fill a writer with sheer delight and awe at what you can do with words, and with despair at knowing that you yourself will never write anything to compare. I've read only a small fraction of Ches...

I was tagged by Rachel at Hamlette's Soliloquy for a tag meme with the following rules: Thank the person who nominated you  Nominate 3 new bloggers every day  Post a new quotation every day for 3 consecutive days The first step is easy. Thanks, Rachel! This looks like fun. I'm even going to steal your idea of sharing three quotes per day instead of just one, because I have a few ideas for themed quotes, and it'll be easier to narrow it down to three quotes per category. Today, I've decided to share quotes from the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries by Dorothy L. Sayers, as an excuse to gush about the series.  I've been working my way through these books, and a recent look at a short story collection reminded me of just how wonderfully quotable these books are.  In the 1920s and '30s, Dorothy L. Sayers wrote a series of mysteries about Lord Peter Wimsey, the second son of the Duke of Denver, who picks up a hobby of amateur detective work, and who obscures his ...

"Finding Nemo" is possibly my favorite Pixar movie, so I was skeptical when "Finding Dory" was announced. "Finding Nemo" needed nothing more. A sequel would only dilute its power. But the more I heard about the film, the more I believed that this wasn't just a cash grab, that Pixar might just have a good story to tell.  I wasn't disappointed. Though "Finding Nemo" remains a perfect film in and of itself, "Finding Dory" adds a new angle that enriches the story in ways I'd never considered. The plot is simple: A year after the first movie, Dory is living happily with Marlin and Nemo, when her faulty memory suddenly allows her to remember the parents she lost years ago. The three fish cross the ocean and search for her parents in the Marine Life Institute, a fish hospital in California. They meet new characters and run into several mishaps along the way, all of which are very amusing, leading to a glorious, over-the-top cli...