Originally interested in filmmaking, Ashley began her college career studying film at a California State school. But she quickly became disheartened with the dog eat dog nature of the film industry and dropped out. She spent the next few years working full time and, in her spare time, writing screenplays, short stories, and unfinished (and that’s probably for the best) novels. She eventually returned to school and earned a Bachelor’s Degree in English from Northern Arizona University.

Immediately after earning her English degree, Ashley went on to pursue an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. She is currently working towards the completion of her Creative Writing degree and is in the final stages of revising her MFA thesis, a novel. She is co-editor and co-founder of MFA/MFYou and also works as a fiction editor for Permafrost.