Sarah Ash Blog
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A blog of fantasy author Sarah Ash. Here, you can find out more about Sarah herself, see a list of her published novels (and read some excerpts from them), read Interviews & reviews, and catch up on Sarah's latest news.
Sarah Ash Blog
1M ago
Moving from fiction to nonfiction was a move I hadn’t expected to make.
The rate of change in the publishing scene is accelerating, with trad publishers becoming ever more risk averse, celebrities colonising our world, while authors, funnily enough, don’t get to colonise theirs, and that level playing field created by the rise of self-publishing in the digital world now so immense nobody can hear what anybody else is saying. Our cultural world is saturated with novels.
I felt depressed and disillusioned when I faced the prospect of not having a publisher for my SF and Steampunk novels. Me a ..read more
Sarah Ash Blog
1M ago
I’m delighted to welcome Stephen Palmer back to the Guest Blog tomorrow (February 24th) and to learn more about his fascinating new non-fiction book I Am Taurus (out today)!
Please Feel Free to Share ..read more
Sarah Ash Blog
4M ago
Since storytelling began, humans have retold and reworked tales. Moral messages, personal fantasies, whimsical tales, life lessons, histories, all have been put through the lens of the storyteller for uncountable generations. But why? Because of this ubiquity, the retelling can be overused. To me, the retellings that stand out the most are ones which take an old story and give it a proper new spin, make it relevant to a modern audience or even decontextualize the story as a whole.
There are too many retellings to cover in one article, from Beowulf (c. 700+) to Journey to the West (Chala-hey-ch ..read more
Sarah Ash Blog
4M ago
The next visitor to the Guest Blog this autumn is Thomas Wrightson who is celebrating the publication of his debut SF novel: Starborn Vendetta and has some fascinating insights to share into the works that inspired him – as well as looking at the theme of tales retold.
Make sure to drop by the website on November 13th to read Thomas’s article and find out more about his novel.
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Sarah Ash Blog
5M ago
I’ve described The Green Man’s Heir and subsequent books as modern fantasy rooted in the ancient myths and folklore of the British Isles. The artwork for The Green Man’s Quarry, will tell readers this latest novel draws on myths and folklore ancient and modern. The more I’ve explored traditional tales, the more I see collective unconscious story creation continues to this day.
The term ‘urban myth’ appeared in the 1960s, but discussion of ‘urban legends’ goes back to at least the 1920s. The OED cites the term’s first appearance in Vanity Fair, 1931. Some modern myths can be tied to earlier ver ..read more
Sarah Ash Blog
5M ago
‘I’ve described The Green Man’s Heir and subsequent books as modern fantasy rooted in the ancient myths and folklore of the British Isles.’ Juliet E. McKenna in her fascinating article for the Guest Blog about the distant origins of the urban myths and legends that we still tell each other today.
To celebrate The Green Man’s Quarry, the sixth (and most recent) volume in her popular Green Man series from Wizard’s Tower Press, Juliet will be looking into myth-making from tomorrow (October 30th) here!
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Sarah Ash Blog
8M ago
Lord of Snow and Shadows (Tears of Artamon, Book 1) Hardcover – July 29, 2003
Can it really be twenty years since the first book of The Tears of Artamon was published? Amazon reminds me that it was my first novel to be published in the States (thanks to my editor Anne Groell) and thanks to the wonderful cover by Stephen Youll in those pre-social media days when there was no such thing as a cover reveal, online blog tour and online book bloggers were only just beginning to appear. Goodreads was yet to appear (it launched in 2007) and writers were very much dependent on word-of-mouth (rathe ..read more
Sarah Ash Blog
9M ago
Are you a fan of Arthurian fiction? If so, The Cleaving, Juliet E. McKenna’s new novel, could be your next read! To discover more about the inspiration that led to its creation, drop by the Guest Blog here on July 8th to read Juliet’s insightful article.
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Sarah Ash Blog
1y ago
Thank you for inviting me back to guest on your blog, Sarah. It was a pleasure the first time around, introducing my fantasy series, Blood Gift Chronicles, which begins with Return of the Mantra, followed by The Warder. Since then it has been an exciting time, including both books winning Firebird Book Awards in 2021, in the LGBTQ+ fiction category and the YA fiction category. The books were many years in the making, and so it was wonderful to receive award status
Thinking about this blog got me thinking back to where it all began. I first started working on Return of the Mantra back in 2006 ..read more
Sarah Ash Blog
1y ago
One of the questions I always dread from readers is “where do you find your inspiration?”. More often than not, I simply don’t know but with In Cases of Murder, the latest of the Bunch Courtney Investigations, I can pinpoint its birth quite precisely.
Commissions for anthologies are often simpler because you are usually given a prompt. I may seek a seed from folk tales for horror fiction or newspaper reports for crime. Novels of 85k need more fuel than an 4k short and quite often there is no one single piece of fact (or fiction) that sets the wheels churning.
With the Bunch Courtney Investigat ..read more