Emma Ashmere’s short story collection DREAMS THEY FORGOT follows her debut novel THE FLOATING GARDEN, shortlisted for the Small Press Network Book of the Year.  Her short fiction and non-fiction have been widely published including in The Age, Meanjin, Griffith Review, Overland, Review of Australian Fiction, Sleepers Almanac, Etchings, Short Australian Stories, NGVmagazine,  and the Commonwealth Writers magazine adda for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. She was a finalist in the Carmel Bird Digital Literary Award and was selected for the inaugural Varuna Online Writers Space Residency.  She/her. Born on Kaurna land in South Australia, she now lives on Bundjalung Country in northern New South Wales and respectfully pays tribute to elders and traditional owners past and present.

News: Winner of the joanne burns Microlit Award 2024 National Category. Appearing at Celebrating Microlit session (via zoom) 6th April Newcastle Writers Festival 2024.

Forthcoming 2024: Winning story joanne burns Microlit Award in Remnant Anthology; shortlisted fiction in FUTURES anthology Glimmer Press.

‘Ashmere’s prose is precise, almost elusive, reading at times like poetry.’ Books+Publishing.

BOOKS

DREAMS THEY FORGOT (2020)

DREAMS THEY FORGOT  is published by Emma’s new publisher Wakefield Press – and is on the Sydney Morning Herald’s Books to Read in 2020 and Readings Bookshop’s Books to Get Excited About and 100 Great Reads by Australian Women 2020. “This debut collection of beautiful short stories spans twenty years of the author’s writing life, bringing together tales of love, loss and feeling out of place.”

Praise for DREAMS THEY FORGOT

“Emma Ashmere’s characters are luminescent. These stories drew me into people and worlds so vivid they practically lived on the page.”  — ANNA SPARGO-RYAN, author of A Kind of Magic, The Gulf, and The Paper House.

‘Ashmere’s writing is full of quick insights and telling details. These stories move effortlessly through place and time, entering lives on the point of transgression. It’s an absolute pleasure to travel with them.’ — JENNIFER MILLS, author of The Airways, Dyschronia, The Rest is Weight, and The Diamond Anchor. 

‘Stories of extraordinary range and depth. Deeply engaging and satisfying.’ — PADDY O’REILLY, author of Other Houses, Peripheral Vision, The End of the World, and The Wonders.

Reviews of DREAMS THEY FORGOT

‘Ashmere’s prose is precise, almost elusive, reading at times like poetry. It drills down into certain details while leaving others out entirely. This invites the reader to complete the picture by tying together the story elements that Ashmere has chosen to share.’ ADAM FORD, BOOKS+PUBLISHING.   (Read the full review here.)

“The stories in this strong and varied collection range across urban and rural Australia and beyond… often impressionistic, never laboriously chewing on their material and trusting the intelligence of the reader to join the dots… There are some excellent stories about family life, especially those told from the point of view of a semi-comprehending and bemused child or adolescent. Ashmere’s greatest strength is in her stories of the historical past, especially in Australia. These stories acknowledge the limits of what is knowable to contemporary readers, evoking instead the unrecoverable strangeness and mystery of the past.” KERRYN GOLDSWORTHY, SYDNEY MORNING HERALD/AGE.

“Ashmere moves skillfully and seamlessly between eras and places… this variety is also a strength, making each story feel different from those surrounding it…  a thoughtful meditation on the things that can hold you down, and the different ways through.” ELIZABETH FLUX, THE SATURDAY PAPER.

“Individual stories build delicately towards such a moment, then fall away quickly, willing a reader to engage with feeling and suggestion rather than the comprehensiveness of narrative…. her stories move both on internal trajectories of revelation and in relation to each other, incrementally building a richly nuanced fabric of story, character, and pinpoints of life experience.” ROSE LUCAS, AUSTRALIAN BOOK REVIEW.

“…all twenty-three stories in Dreams They Forgot are of equal quality. In some collections, stories can blur together, but the diverse locations and historical periods utilised in these stories make each piece memorable.” ANNIE CONDON, READINGS MONTHLY.

“…an exquisite collection of short stories. Many have a filmic quality as Ashmere introduces a scene and moves like a camera would, resting on an object or a person, and then revealing subtle nuances in gestures or words as we are led further in.” HELEN EDDY, READPLUS.

“These short stories have the compressed clarity of diamonds. From somewhere deep, Ashmere brings these small stories to the surface and sets to crafting them. Every angle and facet is laser cut and polished to perfection. ” JENNY BIRD, BYRON WRITERS FESTIVAL NORTHERLY.

The Queens Theatre Adelaide – the setting for ‘Irish Irish’ Commonwealth Short Story Award finalist.

“creatively atmospheric, a series of ‘slice of life’ vignettes set in a variety of eras with a mostly feminist leaning. Emma writes with sublime texture, so much simmering beneath the surface. ” THERESA SMITH, THERESA SMITH WRITES.

“Ashmere has curated this collection in a way which makes it read almost like a novel… Many characters seem to be echoes of each other (or maybe the same person?)… Her prose sits lightly on the page, remaining poetic without forgoing narrative drive. Like a caricaturist, she can evoke a full person with just a few strokes of the pen.” TRACEY KORSTEN, GLAM ADELAIDE.

THE FLOATING GARDEN (2015)

Emma’s debut novel The Floating Garden was shortlisted for the Small Press Network Book of the Year.

Praise for THE FLOATING GARDEN

“…a beautiful meditation on grief, guilt, and regret, set against the backdrop of Milsons Point, Sydney, 1926.” JUDGES’ REPORT 2016 Small Press Network Book of the Year prize.

“…evocatively portrays both the difficulties and the sense of promise in the post-war era… at times it reminded me of Tim Winton’s Cloudstreet.” ⋆⋆⋆⋆ (four stars) BOOKS+PUBLISHING

“…beautifully detailed… finely crafted…an elegy for the forgotten….a subversive counter-history to the tumult of rapid progress.” SYDNEY MORNING HERALD/AGE. Read the full review here.

“This captivating debut… teems with charlatans, eccentrics and those doing it tough in a time of hardship and prejudice. Yet Ashmere weaves a sense of hope and redemption as her characters seek to rediscover their true selves.” ⋆⋆⋆⋆ (four stars) THE ADVERTISER.

“I enthusiastically recommend this book … a new type of historical fiction.” ⋆⋆⋆⋆ (four stars) MD Brady’s US blog: Me, You and Books.

“I loved the vivid descriptions of the market and the ferries; the sights and scents of lush plant life; the mud, slush and sordid decay of the houses … the shadowy dangers that lurk in the cramped dark streets… Without idealising poverty, Ashmere depicts this Sydney as a place for the marginalised and eccentric.” LISA HILL (Top 10 Books 2016) ANZlitlovers

“Ashmere does for the underprivileged of 1920s Sydney what Ruth Park did for the 1950s in Harp in the South… both exude warmth and sympathy for their motley crew of marginalised characters, and both are valuable for their social history.” Whispering Gums.

“[A] compelling and lyrical novel of a rough-and-ready Sydney that is in the throes of rapid change; a town where the spiritual is necessary but corrupted,a and where sexual lives remain hidden even from those in the grip of desire.” SOPHIE CUNNINGHAM, author of This Devastating Fever, Bird and City of Trees.

“A charming and lyrical story of masculine ambition outwitted by feminine fruition. 1920s Sydney in all her raffish grandeur, flourishes on every page.” MANDY SAYER, author of Love in the Years of Lunacy and Australian Gypsies.

“…a beautiful and quietly enthralling work… it skillfully renders the range and complexity of women’s lives.” JESSICA WHITE, author of A Curious Intimacy and Hearing Maud.

The Floating Garden follows the fortunes of the unforgettable Ellis Gilbey, the highly-strung artist Rennie Howarth, the charismatic theosophist Miss Minerva Stranks, and the delicate Kitty Tate. A beautifully written debut novel. JESSE BLACKADDER, author of The Raven’s Heart, Chasing the Light and Sixty Seconds.

“Emma Ashmere’s subtle, wry storytelling takes the reader inside 1920s Sydney… it is the story of those women who dared to want more than society offered them.”  SARAH ARMSTRONG, author of Salt Rain, His Other House and Promise.

Hear an interview with KATE EVANS about Emma’s novel The Floating Garden on Radio National’s Books & Arts program. 

More reviews of The Floating Garden here.

Talking about books and the shortlisting for the  Commonwealth Short Story Prize on Radio National’s The Bookshelf with hosts Kate Evans and Cassie McCullough.

Emma’s #8Wordstory flickered across three Brisbane inner city billboards in November 2017.

Follow Emma Ashmere on: Instagram  & Mastadon 

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