“You can do it, AJ. You can do it, AJ. You can do it, AJ,” I heard my son whimpering quietly behind me on the tag-along bike attachment. He was scared of biking, and this was our first attempt on the tag-along after years of trying to get him on his own bike with...
Sweet relief. I am feeling good. I can clearly see that I am not a troll. It’s obvious. Look at how bright I am! Then I browse through drafts of entries I wrote last month in a plateau—a familiar descent—and think, “Ew, Ashley. What’s with all the stiff...
“We should do a playdate!” The cheerful red-headed woman said brightly, cornering me at pre-school pick up. “My daughter just loves your daughter Primrose.” I knew what she said was true because everyone loved my daughter Primrose, and Primrose loved...
I’m struggling to think of what to say. I’ve made commitments–to myself, to my family, to my nonprofit, to my book. Have I just opened another can of worms that I don’t have the capacity to manage by starting a Substack? The easy thing to do would be to skip this...
Write first, then you can shower. That was the incentive I gave myself just now, to sit down and type. I projected myself into the future post-shower version of me; clean and warm and ready to disappear into a book on this overcast and rainy day, soaking up and...
So here we are. I’ve written a book. The next steps? Finish the book proposal→ Pitch it to literary agents→ Agent pitches it to publishers→ Edit, design, print, and market. The 105,000-word book is about my journey from the thought of running across America for my...
You’d be surprised at how easy it is to hide within a charity. I know this because I founded one in 2009. I was rather young and audacious enough to believe I could make a difference, while being naive to the amount of work involved in fighting the illness that caused...