Hello Friends.
My first year on Substack has been a wild ride. Thank you for every subscription, every follow, every share, every read. I am so grateful someone enjoys what I have to say, let alone over a hundred somebodies.
Here are my most popular articles in 2025. (Y’all really wanted the tea huh?)
Ash Wren Reads Bookshop
As we approach the holiday shopping season, consider how you want to spend your dollars. As a reminder, I have a bookshop with Bookshop.org that supports me, indie authors, and indie bookstores. It’s a purchase you can feel good about.
Please browse! bookshop.org/shop/AshWrenReads
Pango Books
I am also selling some of my new-condition reads on Pango Books. Here are some of my listings.
Writing Progress
During Novel November I didn’t draft a new novel alongside everyone else. No that would be irresponsible. But neither did I take a break as discussed last month. I was able to sneak in some editing of Godspoken and am already to chapter 6 in my progress. That feels so good lemme tell you.
My friend described me as Sisyphus pushing his boulder up the hill and oh how accurate that feels. I’m chipping away at this book one day at a time.
Here’s my favorite manuscript line this month…
The amber grass swayed around young Naya’s shoulders, tall and wild and long gone to seed. The warm sun bathed the princess while she ran, giggling, knocking the stalks with her arms.
Indie Visible
Some writer friends and I are doing a somewhat regular series called Indie Visible where we try to help indie authors navigate the writing and publishing process.
In November we had a great talk with Shawn Amick and KR Solberg, two of the team members involved in the creation of the BookTok Festival. We learned how they lovingly and thoughtfully put together guests and panelists for this first ever TikTok convention.
December 11th (6pm pst/ 9pm est) we’ll be chatting with author Amy Nova on the ins and outs of Amazon keywords and how to make your book stand out in Amazon’s catalog. If you’re selling your book on Amazon, you’re going to want to be there! Bring a notebook.
Books I Read…
This month I began reading the original Arthurian Legends, the ones from the 15th century. I’ll be writing about that experience soon, but huge shout out to Project Gutenberg, a great resource to access public domain titles for free.
This month I also DNF’ed a LOT of things, but these reads stood out and I highly recommend them.
Hazelthorn by CG Drews - YA botanical horror! I didn’t know any of these genre combos existed. This was a 5 star read for me.
God of the Woods by Liz Moore - Literary mystery that had me guessing who done it the whole read! (My copy, in bookstore condition, is available for $12 on Pango Books)
Funny Story by Emily Henry - Fake dating romcom. Gotta love it. (My copy, in bookstore condition, is available for $12 on Pango Books)
This Month’s Blog…
Here are the articles I wrote this month, in case you missed them.
Check out all of my articles here.
As always, thanks for being here. Thanks for reading.
Until next time,
Ash Wren
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