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Ashley E. Sweeney
Photo by Justin Haugen Photography
Past Events
Tucson Festival of Books
On March 5 and 6, 2023 Ashley had a Hardland book signing and volunteered at the Women Writing the West booth.
Hardland November Book Tours
Author Talk with Mark C. Jackson and Ashley Sweeney
Sept. 27, 2022
Author Talk with Mark C. Jackson and Ashley Sweeney
Join Mark and Ashley as they talk about their new books Blue Rivers of Heaven and Hardland. Hosted by Blue Cottage Agency.
Interview with sister-author-friend Susan J. Tweit
Sept. 20, 2022
Ashley and sister-author-friend Susan J. Tweit discuss Ashley’s new book Hardland. Hosted by Village Books in Bellingham, WA
Orcas Island Literary Festival
At the June 2022 Orcas Island Lit Fest, I participated in a lively author panel moderated by Orcas resident and editor Mia Lipman Irwin. Joining me were sister Nancy Pearl Book Award winner Kelli Estes (The Girl Who Wrote in Silk; Today We Go Home), Vauhini Vara (The Immortal King Rao), and Nicola Griffith (Hild; So Lucky; Spear).
Women Writing the West Conference
At the October 2021 Women Writing the West Conference, I was thrilled to receive the WILLA Literary Award for Historical Fiction.
Winner and finalists were:
Winner: Wild Rivers, Wild Rose by Sarah Birdsall
Finalists: Answer Creek by Ashley E. Sweeney and The Streel: A Deadwood Mystery by Mary Logue
More about this award here.
Interviews
Delmarva Today, NPR, June 24, 2022
Listen to this podcast of Ashley Sweeney in conversation with host Hal Wilson as they discuss her new book, Hardland.
Village Books, Bellingham WA, Nov. 12, 2020
Ashley Sweeney in conversation with Julie Christine Johnson as they discuss her new book, Answer Creek.
Capital Books, Sacramento CA, Oct. 20, 2020
Ashley Sweeney in conversation with Shelley Blanton-Stroud as they discuss her new book, Answer Creek.
Peregrine Books, Prescott AZ, Sept. 26, 2020
During this virtual event, Ashley discussed the research she did for her most recent novel, Answer Creek. In addition, she read a passage out of the book and participated in a Q&A with the online guests.
Sacramento Public Library, Sept. 15, 2020
Panel topic “Anonymous Was a Woman”—Female Protagonists Use Their Voices, Make Their Choices.
This is the fourth and final episode of a Suffrage series facilitated by the Special Collections and Archives of the Sacramento Public Library.
International Steinbeck Conference, August 3, 2020
Watch Ashley and three other authors (Shelley Blanton-Stroud, Gretchen Cherington, and Myra Goodman) as they discuss the topic of Resilience/Grit, provoked by the work of John Steinbeck. The title of their virtual panel was Resilience in Literature.
Delmarva Today, NPR, July 14, 2020
Host Harold Wilson hosts Ashley Sweeney the author, of the historical novel, Answer Creek.
Author to Author, Sept. 12, 2017
Watch an informative interview with Ashley E. Sweeney hosted by William (Bill) Kenower, the editor of Author magazine.
Interviews – print
Society Nineteen Journal, April 2021
Talks with Ashley Sweeney
Read the interview here.
Star-Herald, July 6, 2020
“Author uses Henderson Collection for newest book”
Read the interview here.
Deborah Kalb Books, May 19, 2020
“Book Q&A’s with Deborah Kalb”
Read the interview here.
Podcasts
Authors2Author’s Bill Kenower, Editor-in-Chief, welcomed Ashley on June 2, 2020 to talk about her new book Answer Creek.
Bill welcomes novelist Ashley E. Sweeney to the show. Ashley is the winner of the 2017 Nancy Pearl Book Award for her debut novel, Eliza Waite. A native New Yorker, she is a graduate of Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts, and resides in the Pacific Northwest and Tucson. Answer Creek is her second novel. She has long been enamored with underserved women’s voices. Her technique to hitch a heroine to history dovetails with an unfortunate fact: women’s stories make up only a fraction of narratives set in the American West. She aims to rectify that! Don’t miss it.
Authors on the Air host Pam Stack welcomed author Ashley E. Sweeney to the studio on May 13, 2020.
As per Ashley “My newest novel, Answer Creek, introduces a stoic and hardy protagonist who braves the rigors of the Oregon-California Trail as a member of the ill-fated Donner Party. In Answer Creek, I tackle deep—and even taboo—topics: starvation, madness, murder, and yes, cannibalism. Although Ada Weeks is a fictional character, she, and many other young women like her, traveled the Oregon-California Trail in the 1840s and 1850s. Their struggles were more similar than different, including that most of them were bound largely by the decisions of others (namely men—husbands, fathers, brothers, uncles), rather than their own.”
Stories that Empower with Sean welcomed author Ashley E. Sweeney on September 6, 2021 to share her story about her healing process from a violent assault by a man that she loved.
Recently, she thought about what she should do with the time that’s been gifted to her. So, Ashley confronted her long buried pain and gave herself permission to revisit the assault. She took the time and room to uncover her own hurt, although it was extremely painful. Ashley realized that she had been suffering from PTSD, but masked it with a sunny disposition. She forgave herself for holding it in and realized that she was not at fault for what happened. Then, as if a miracle happened, Ashley crossed the threshold.
Guest Blogs
Women Writers, Women’s Books
On Writing HARDLAND: Ashley Sweeney
September 13, 2022
Read Her Like an Open Book
April 19, 2020
Read this blog
Jill-Elizabeth
May 22, 2020
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Let Them Read Books
May 8, 2020
Read this blog