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thatzashie.bsky.social
Ash
@thatzashie.bsky.social
160 followers 220 following 280 posts
Swords and Sorcery Lover| Collector of pulps| Cats and one old dog | occasional writing workshop assistant she/her
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thatzashie.bsky.social
Ash @thatzashie.bsky.social · Jun 21
Just a little collage of my collection favorites so far. 3 years into collecting!
Reposted by Ash
swankmotron.com
You know, @michaelastackpole.bsky.social's Chain Story has a helluva line up of free fiction... the last three installments alone are @katherinewashere.bsky.social, me, and then Mike himself. And it's all just good stuff. (and then, you know, mine is there too.) www.chainstorycore.com
Blight by Katherine Monasterio, Ice Hawk's Aerie by Bryan Young, and Blood for the River by Michael A. Stackpole
December 14, 2025 at 1:25 AM
thatzashie.bsky.social
I am trying to figure out why I really love dinosaurs showing up in swords and sorcery. But lemme tell you. If you bring a dinosaur in I am sold.
December 13, 2025 at 9:40 PM
thatzashie.bsky.social
Diving into some swords and sorcery reading today it is such a great way to unwind from a long week.
December 13, 2025 at 8:23 PM
Reposted by Ash
delilahsdawson.bsky.social
Look, if you have a question about one of my books before buying it, YOU CAN ASK ME. I just sit here--and on Insta and Threads. I check my replies. I'm happy to help! Don't ask the stupid AI that steals my life's work and vomits out garbage. I will tell you whatever you want to know!!
December 12, 2025 at 11:59 PM
thatzashie.bsky.social
Check out @katherinewashere.bsky.social ‘s free story!
katherinewashere.bsky.social Katherine Monasterio @katherinewashere.bsky.social · 3d
Thrilled to share this (freeee!) story with everyone at last!

I hope you enjoy our protagonist—a grump-with-a-heart-of-gold forest ranger—and that you ooh and ahh over the beautiful cover by my dear friend Xenia, linked in the front matter + on my site, as she takes commissions!

Happy reading ☕️📚🍃
michaelastackpole.bsky.social Michael A. Stackpole 🇺🇦 @michaelastackpole.bsky.social · 3d
The Chain Story Project has just released its latest story: Blight by Katherine Monasterio. It's FREE!

Please enjoy, like and especially share. (Sharing helps so very much!) Thank you.

www.chainstorycore.com/blog/free-fiction-round-twelve
December 11, 2025 at 11:35 PM
thatzashie.bsky.social
Check out the latest Chain Story story!!!
December 10, 2025 at 11:08 PM
Reposted by Ash
katherinewashere.bsky.social
okay who wants a sneak peek of my super cool and fun short story dropping tomorrow as part of @michaelastackpole.bsky.social's chain story project 👀

have a tiny snippet of the cover art + an early scene! 🍃
a small square of the cover art of my short story for release tomorrow, featuring the outline of illustrated gold leaves along the right side, on a background of warm green layers and shapes—unclear what it is! there's a four-pointed pale star on the right and some pale speckles beneath it. A snippet of my short story, which reads, From Bex’s tight-lipped uncertainty, she needs more clarity, too. “Let me say it back to you,” I suggest. “To make sure I understand.” The king inclines his benevolent head. “Of course.” “Your Royal Forest—” Outside the capital, 15 square miles of lush green woods, long the personal hunting grounds of royalty and their hangers-on. Lords. Whatever. “—has come up blighted.” “Right so far.” “And you’ve sent three squads to investigate, but none have returned.” “Correct again.” “So now you’re sending me to investigate, and I may not return.” Emil, still at the king’s side acting more servant than secretary, draws his thin brows together. “Have a care for your impertinence.” “There,” says the king, hand rising to hush Emil, “we lose one another. “I’ve sent soldiers and hunters and trackers, none with the experience you have, and none with the Green Speech. You have a much better chance than any of them. I doubt you’ll have their ill luck.” I frown. “Green Speech or no, my experience is with the North Woods. Those are evergreen lands. Coniferous growths. The Royal Forest here is deciduous. I don’t know half so much about that kind of flora, nor what among them could cause a blight so deadly—” “I don’t need you to taxonomize the place. Just learn from the blight exactly what you learned from my violet and trace it to its source, then eliminate the problem. You’ve cured blights before, haven’t you?” Cured isn’t a word I’d use, but Emil looks like the vein above his brow might pop if I correct the king, so I mutter, “Of course.” “They are curable, are they not? Dead animals in water sources, Elder Kind runes unearthed in badger tunnels?” Beside me, Bex finds an interesting thread in her cloak; she must be itching to correct his vocabulary. “Blights can be reversed,” I say. “But if your soldiers aren’t coming back, the source may be a great deal more troublesome than runes appearing in badger setts.” Bex smirks. “Precisely.”
December 9, 2025 at 5:58 PM
Reposted by Ash
locusmag.bsky.social
2025 Stories We Loved: “Jirel and the Mirror of Truth” by Molly Tanzer locusmag.com/2025/12...
December 8, 2025 at 3:24 PM
Reposted by Ash
geoliminal.bsky.social
fun little essay on Sword & Sorcery as a Literature of the Body by yers truly in Issue #6 of the unbelievably cool NEW EDGE SWORD AND SORCERY MAGAZINE, available now! Grab a copy, physical or digital, here:
newedgeswordandsorcery.com/product-cate...
December 6, 2025 at 9:01 PM
thatzashie.bsky.social
Lots of must reads like @minillajovovich.bsky.social ‘s story
minillajovovich.bsky.social Minilla Jovovich 🍉 @minillajovovich.bsky.social · 7d
It's finally out: New Edge Sword & Sorcery Magazine #5, featuring my contribution "Staku-ra's Hoard" - in which a seaside waitress joins a crew of reprobates (her ex among them) on the hunt for a cursed treasure!

Please enjoy this piratical adventure!

newedgeswordandsorcery.com/product/new-...
The cover to New Edge Sword & Sorcery Magazine #5, featuring a triumphant warrior woman holding her sword aloft over a fallen foe
December 6, 2025 at 10:46 PM
thatzashie.bsky.social
When everyone is talking too loud and ruining your morning nap.
December 6, 2025 at 4:10 PM
Reposted by Ash
obrackenbury.bsky.social
🗣️This is today!

And I'm giving away softcovers of issue #0 to the first ten people who ask me for them in person...📚
December 6, 2025 at 2:24 PM
thatzashie.bsky.social
You should definitely go see Bryan if you are nearby.
swankmotron.com Bryan Young @swankmotron.com · 11d
Utah friends: You should visit a TON of local bookstores on Saturday, but make sure you come to one in particular and see me for Utah Authors Day!
Utah Authors Day - Kings English Bookshop - Meet Bryan Young - December 6th - 1-3pm
December 3, 2025 at 6:03 PM
Reposted by Ash
suspensesiren.bsky.social
There’s still time to hit those goals for this year. I can help!
December 1, 2025 at 10:05 PM
thatzashie.bsky.social
Cookies
December 1, 2025 at 1:24 AM
thatzashie.bsky.social
It’s hard when you have to share the heated blanket with your rude human.
November 28, 2025 at 5:44 PM
Reposted by Ash
minillajovovich.bsky.social
I got this hotness coming out, in which a clever waitress gets roped into a hubt for a cursed treasure with some real scumbags - but something else, something ancient, is on their trail as well...

new-edge-sword-sorcery-2025.backerkit.com/hosted_preor...
November 26, 2025 at 10:10 PM
Reposted by Ash
michaelastackpole.bsky.social
The Chain Story Project has just released a brand new story: Bryan Young's Ice Hawk's Aerie. This is the first of many stories about Pip Strongpaw, the last of the Great Catriders.

www.chainstorycore.com/blog/free-fi...
Free Fiction, Round Eleven — The Chain Story
This week the Chain Story Project is happy to introduce Pip Strongpaw, hero, wanderer and mouse. Please enjoy his debut tale from the pen of Bryan Young, Ice Hawk’s Aerie .
www.chainstorycore.com
November 26, 2025 at 4:00 PM
thatzashie.bsky.social
I made cultured butter and bought little butter molds.
November 25, 2025 at 9:14 PM
Reposted by Ash
swankmotron.com
Tomorrow kicks off my serial series for @michaelastackpole.bsky.social's Chain Story!
The adventures of Pip Strongpaw, last of the Great Catriders and Knight of the Forsworn Few. Part 1: Ice Hawk's Aerie

Cover by @runningcritter.bsky.social

Check www.chainstory.com tomorrow! (It's FREE!)
Ice Hawk's Aerie by Bryan Young - A mouse with a sword and red cape and his cat with a saddle look on at a frozen wasteland in the sky, a hawk with glowing blue eyes looks down at them ominously
November 25, 2025 at 5:01 PM
Reposted by Ash
riseupcomus.bsky.social
I have said before and will say again that it is such a loss that we no longer get covers of this caliber for fantasy books.

This art is by Jean-Léon Huens. These covers are for the Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander. They lit my imagination on fire as a kid.
Young man in a red tunic bearing a sword surrounded by armed glassy-eyed monsters A red robed horseman with a skull face and stag's antlers rides through the forest, the horse rearing back, a shaft of light falling onto the scene A red haired woman in a red dress and a boy in a blue doublet stand in front of a huge black cauldron. In the foreground, three cackling hags. A boy in a blue tunic with a dagger tries to get a sword away from a giant orange cat
November 25, 2025 at 1:02 PM
Reposted by Ash
swankmotron.com
I was on @krclradio.bsky.social's RadioActive to talk about the Utah Book Awards and BattleTech: A Question of Survival, which won this the 2025 Utah Book Award in the Speculative Fiction Category: krcl.org/blog/radioac...
RadioACTive Celebrates 2025 Utah Book Award Authors
Wednesday, Nov. 19: Nick @ 6 talks with the Utah writers behind Wat Kept Playing (illustrated and Children Utah Great Reads Selection), Battletech: A Question of Survival (speculative fiction),  Path of Light (memoir and Adult Utah ...
krcl.org
November 20, 2025 at 5:09 PM
thatzashie.bsky.social
Everything @minillajovovich.bsky.social writes is 🔥🔥🔥 100/10. Go read it.
minillajovovich.bsky.social Minilla Jovovich 🍉 @minillajovovich.bsky.social · Nov 13
No one will ever accuse ME of not being loud enough!

"Hedging Your Bets" and "Staku-ra's Hoard" are the ones with trans leads but 90% of my shit is free so peep them all why dontcha! (i'm sure the math checks out, I'm a write good girl not a count good girl)
November 13, 2025 at 7:34 PM
Reposted by Ash
michaelastackpole.bsky.social
The Chain Story Project just released its TENTH free fiction offering.

Head over there now and, for FREE, you can get my brand new story Blood for the River.

(Please like and share. Sharing is a HUGE help. Thank you.)

chainstorycore.com
The Chain Story
chainstorycore.com
November 12, 2025 at 8:17 PM
Reposted by Ash
michaelastackpole.bsky.social
Kate's work is brilliant. If you've not read her, here's a perfect place to begin. (then grab her novels and call in sick for a fortnight.) You won't want to put them down.
reactorsff.bsky.social Reactor Magazine @reactorsff.bsky.social · Nov 5
An older medic with scant resources fights to support her community as they survive life behind the company wall.

"Barnacle" by @kateelliottsff.bsky.social is out now at Reactor!!
Art by @juanbernabeu.bsky.social
Edited by @watership-up.bsky.social
Barnacle - Reactor
An older medic with scant resources fights to support her community as they survive life behind the company wall.
reactormag.com
November 5, 2025 at 3:15 PM