Ashley E. Sweeney
A native New Yorker, Ashley E. Sweeney is the award-winning author of three novels, Eliza Waite, Answer Creek, and Hardland. She lives and writes in Tucson and the Pacific Northwest.
Twitter: @AshleySweeney57
Instagram: @ashleysweeneyauthor
What period of history do you wish you knew more about?
The Tudors! I’m fascinated with the era in Britain from roughly 1485-1603 during the reigns of Henry VII, Henry VIII, Mary I, and Elizabeth I with appearances by Edward VI, the six wives of Henry VIII (Catherine of Aragon, Anne Bolelyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard, and Catherine Parr—divorced, beheaded, died; divorced, beheaded, survived) and religious and political titans Cardinal Thomas Wolsey and Thomas Cromwell.
Despite having read multiple books on the era, I can never get enough. Political intrigue. Religious outrage. Deceit. Royal scandal. Betrayal. It’s all there, in living color.
While I studied in York, England in college in the late 1970s, I took courses on The Black Death, History of Tudor England, and The Reformation, in addition to a course on Chaucer, who predated the Tudor Era by a century (I also took a course on Early American History from the British Perspective—you know that old adage that perspective is everything . . .)
Thanks to authors Phillipa Gregory, Hilary Mantel, Alison Weir, Suzannah Dunn, and Margaret Campbell Barnes, among others, readers have a front-row seat into Tudor England, an ever-fascinating period of history. As soon as any next title is released, you can bet I’ll have ordered it.
Is your go to comfort food sweet or savory? Is it something you make yourself? Does food inspire your writing?
Oh, to choose! I am partial to pastries, and could stand for hours in front of the window at a French patisserie or an Italian panetteria and drool over profiteroles or éclairs, cornetta or bomboloni. Closer to home, there’s a 24-hour donut house that serves up out-of-the-oven fresh cake donuts that melt in your mouth (no, I’ve never attempted to make these at home, although I do make Dutch oliebollen at Christmas).
In my first novel, Eliza Waite, I brought my love of all things baked to her story. As the owner of a bakery in Skagway, Alaska during the Klondike Gold Rush, Eliza’s culinary creations are embedded in the novel, thirty-three of them, sourced originally from late 19th century recipes in American newspapers.
In Hardland, my third, and newest, release (9/13/22), roadhouse owner Ruby Fortune is famous for her Ruby Pie, and that recipe is found in the narrative. Even Teddy Roosevelt raved about it in the novel.
So yes, either consciously or unconsciously, baked goods make an appearance in my writing.
Is there another profession you would like to try?
If only I had known that costume design or set design was a profession, and not just a hobby! As an amateur thespian in my younger life, I’d never felt so alive as on stage. Later, when, as a high school English teacher, I brought a group of students to Ashland, Oregon to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and took a tour backstage to see professional costume and set artists at work, I felt a pang of jealousy. That could have been me!
This is not to disparage my liberal arts education or my careers in journalism and education, but it begs the question: Do high school seniors really know the gamut of careers available? Even when I was in education, the career fairs were geared to more traditional white- and blue-collar work.
Two of my nephews now have positions that didn’t exist when I went to college (behavioral economics and website analytics). I’d like to see more young people introduced to expanded career opportunities. And while I won’t be a professional costume designer or set designer in this lifetime (I like the author life too much!), I have a greater appreciation for their artistry every time I see a play or film.
Do you have another artistic outlet in addition to your writing? Do you sew? Paint? Draw? Knit? Dance?
Yes, all of the above, except draw and knit—I can’t draw a stick figure to save my life and am an abject failure at knitting, despite my grandmothers and daughters being avid knitters. My loves include art quilting, abstract painting, and mosaic. And I love to garden. Here in Northwest Washington, I grow a lovely English cottage garden that takes up much of my time. But it is a delight to sit beneath the shade of a huge hibiscus and read once my weeding and watering is done.
Like any creative, I find these artistic pursuits to be an extension of my soul—and cheaper than therapy. Making art in other forms also gets me off my duff. Thinking is critical to writing. My characters are always with me as I pursue other artistic endeavors. Sometimes while I’m gardening, especially, I even have conversations with my characters, but don’t tell anyone.
If you could create a museum exhibition, what would be the theme?
If I could curate any exhibition, it would be of children’s artwork. I’d love to see an entire wing of a museum dedicated to: What is Happiness? What is Sadness?
In their innocence—or sometimes lack of innocence—children are honest in their artwork. Ask a five-year-old to draw her family and you will get a clearer picture of that family’s dynamics than the report of a professional counselor. I love the colors and shapes children use, too, bold and dramatic. My fridge is covered with the artwork of my six grandchildren, filled with primary colors and larger-than-life characters, an ongoing exhibit of their lives.
Children see the world as it is without a filter. We should look at the world through their eyes.
