The Cruel Prince meets City of Bones in this thrilling urban fantasy set in the magical underworld of Toronto that follows a queer cast of characters racing to stop a serial killer whose crimes could expose the hidden world of faeries to humans.
We had the pleasure of chatting with Ashley Shuttleworth about their debut novel A Dark and Hollow Star, writing, book recommendations, and more!
Hi, Ashley! Tell us a bit about yourself!
Hello all, I’m Ashley Shuttleworth! I was born in British Columbia and through a series of moves wound up in Ontario, where I attended Trent University and obtained a degree in English Literature with an emphasis on Milton, the Romantic Period, and Greek/Roman mythology. I enjoy travelling, but my favourite things to do are more home-based, such as reading and gaming (Zelda, Final Fantasy, and Kingdom Hearts are my life-blood). I’m also really into cosplay, and collecting swords, and when I’m not writing I currently work at a wine store and “Wine Merchant” is one of the coolest job titles I’ve ever worn, just saying.
After the chaos that was 2020, have you set any goals for this year? If so, how are they going so far?
I’ve set a few goals for myself, yes! Most of them are pretty boring things like “try to sleep more” and “get outside once in a while”, but a big one is that I’d like to complete a project entirely unrelated to the HOLLOW STAR books. It’s going well so far! I have the first few chapters with my agent as we speak, and if she likes them, then it’s full steam ahead with that—if not, I’ve been channelling debut anxiety into outlining, so I have many Works In Progress to choose from.
Quick lightning round! Tell us the first book you ever remember reading, the one that made you want to become an author, and one that you can’t stop thinking about!
I distinctly remember my dad sitting me and my siblings down when I was really little and reading The Hobbit and then the Lord of the Rings trilogy to us, but the first novel I remember reading (that wasn’t The Bailey School kids—which I freaking LOVED as a kid) was the Artemis Fowl series. I ADORED those books and devoured each within hours of getting them, and it’s definitely here that my love for faeries truly took off. There are a number of books that all fed into my wanting to become an author, but CARDCAPTORS by CLAMP was one of the first fandoms I’d ever written fanfiction for, so I’ll say my dream to become an author started there. As for the book I can stop thinking about, pretty much ever—THE SONG OF ACHILLES. I would read Madeline Miller’s shopping list, so I’m more or less always waiting for another one of her books. THE SONG OF ACHILLES is my favourite, though, and I read it at least once a year.
When did you first discover your love for writing?
I first discovered my love of writing through fanfiction. I was deep into several fandoms from a very young age, starting with The Legend of Zelda games. Every notebook I owned became a playground for writing stories about those worlds, and eventually I moved on to sharing them on places like FF.Net and AO3.
Your debut novel A Dark and Hollow Star is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Much dark, many dramatics—yes, this is only 4, but this is nevertheless ADAHS at its foundations.
Now, what can readers expect?
Complexity—I give no one an inch with this book. I spent my days obsessed with things like Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy and CLAMP manga; storylines that were sweeping and complicated and full of intricate worldbuilding, where if you blink even once you’ll miss something important. I grew up reading 400k fanfics in one night, and gravitated towards books that were part of a series and hundreds of pages. I like complex—the world we live in is complex! And so readers can expect going into this one a space where there’s a lot going on, many threads that seem disconnected at first glance, but the longer the story goes on, weave in together to create the dramatic chaos I also really enjoy.
What inspired you to write A Dark and Hollow Star?
I don’t think there’s any one thing that inspired me to write this story, but many things, some of them little and some of them more profound, everything working together to bring me to this. A lot of personal experiences, my studies at university, the books I’ve read and shows I’ve watched and games I’ve played have all inspired it, but I’d probably say above all else my desire to put a blatantly queer fantasy into the world I would have LOVED to read as a teen was what made me fight so hard for it. And also, a story dealing with some of the darker, traumatic things the world likes to pretend don’t happen to children and teens, but unfortunately do. I wanted this story to be a place where people who don’t often feel seen or heard are.
Were there any challenges you faced while writing? If so, how did you overcome them?
There were a number of challenges I faced while writing A DARK AND HOLLOW STAR, unfortunately. The original agent I signed with ended up leaving, so I was transferred to another agent; I had to do MANY revisions on this story—not just edits but full out revisions, which was more time consuming than anything but still a hurdle; and through all of this, my personal life had taken a bit of a spiral. With pretty much anything you have to juggle for a sustained period of time, life has a way of taking odd turns. Personally, I overcame them by making sure to take as many breaks as possible, to rest when I could and do things that were relaxing to me (such a gaming and going for walks), and talking to my friends. Friends—particular ones that also write—are invaluable in this journey. A few good people on your side, willing to listen to your frustrations and remind you to take care of yourself, will make all the difference in this journey and I found that to be especially true for me.
If it’s not too spoilery, do you have any favourite moments that you loved bringing to the page?
I honestly loved writing the final scenes of this story. Because it’s the ending, I can’t really get too specific, but when the core 4 finally reach their “end destination”, I had so much fun writing their exploration of [redacted] and that final confrontation—even if it did take me a few tries to get it right.
What was the road to becoming a published author like for you?
Like any road worth travelling, really, it was full of ups and downs. There are difficult aspects—the amount of time and energy required to pull off numerous drafts and rounds of revisions and edits is no small thing, and your personal life doesn’t just stop for that. Balance all that with maintaining another job on top of this and it can be quite exhausting, but despite that, there’s been so many moments of joy, like getting to see my book’s cover; the font the words will be written in; the excited notes and gushing e-mails and WONDERFUL love and support from everyone who’s worked on this; holding my ARC for the first time; signing with my agent, my editor, my UK editor—so many things, and getting to celebrate all of them with friends who also love you and want to see you succeed far outweighs the moments of impostor syndrome, and worry, and stress.
More specifically though: I signed with my first agent at Emerald City Literary Agency not too long after putting A Dark and Hollow Star out on its first round of query, and it was at this point that I had to do my first ever revision (which was quite a huge revision, and in my excitement, I spent many late nights during a family ski trip to get it done). I’m glad I had to do it, though, because it tore the band-aid off for later, so to speak. A few months later, ADAHS went out on its first round of submission—shopping it out to different editors. It was during this time two things happened: first, my agent left agenting and I was transferred to my current agent, Mandy Hubbard; second, we received an email from one of the editors we submitted to asking if it would be okay to pass my MS onto a different editor at the same imprint. This editor also wanted another Revise and Resubmit, and I was full-steam ahead with that, especially since—thanks to doing a big revision right from go—these no longer intimidated me.
It took a few months to get this revision together, though. I was terrified that the editor would forget about me during this time, or lose interest, but she didn’t! In fact, when I was finally able to resubmit it to her, we had a wonderful phone call and chatted about how much she loved this story. ADAHS went to acquisitions (which is where the entire publishing team gets together to decide whether or not they’re going to buy the book) and under the provision that I do one last revision before my edit letter, ADAHS was sold, to Sarah McCabe and (then) Simon Pulse (now McElderry).
So, on the one hand, things went very quickly for me in the beginning. I got my agent Feb 2018 and sold my book December of the same year. But there was a lot of work that needed to be done on the story before it was ready to be published, that one last hefty revision where ADAHS went from 1 POV to 4 was the biggest revision I’ve done to date. I wouldn’t trade a thing about my experience though, because it was all EXP that helped me level up as a writer.
What’s the best and the worst writing advice you have received?
I think the best piece of writing advice I’ve ever received is to just write your book—just focus on getting the words out of your head and onto the page. Once that’s done, THEN you can worry about things like how to make those words pretty enough that someone will want to read them.
One of the worst pieces of advice I’ve received is that you HAVE to pay for an editor in order to get an agent/traditional book deal. You do not. I didn’t have a professional editor look at my book before submitting it to an agent—in fact, even when I signed with my publisher there were still glaring mistakes in my writing. You need to have your story written and edited to the best of your ability, send it out to some beta readers to help you catch the things you missed, then edit it again. Once it’s in the best shape it can possibly be, send it out to an agent—but no agent expects your MS to be flawless. They expect they’re going to have to help you out a bit before you send it on to submission. The ones who do expect perfection are a little questionable in my opinion, but that’s a whole other topic.
Now, if you’re self-publishing, it may be in your best interest to pay for an editor. If you’re truly uncomfortable with sending it out unedited, or don’t have any writing friends who can look over your work, then by all means you can pay for editing. But you do not NEED to do this to acquire an agent, or get a traditional book deal.
What’s next for you?
Currently I’m working on the sequel to A DARK AND HOLLOW STAR, which is slated to come out Summer 2022. I’m also working on that hopeful new project, because I’d like to make writing my full-time career and I guess you need to actually write books for that to happen.
Lastly, do you have any book recommendations for our readers?
I have SO many recommendations, many that have already released and many that are soon to come! To name a few:
- LEGENDBORN by Tracy Deonn (Sept 2020)—an enthralling modern day twist on Arthurian legend that follows a Black teenage girl who discovers a secret, historically white magic society while attending a UNC-Chapel Hill residential pre-college program
- WINGS OF EBONY by J.Elle (Jan 2021)—a keenly emotional fantasy about a Black teen from Houston whose world is upended when she learns about her godly ancestry
- SHADOW CITY by Francesca Flores (Jan 2021)—sequel to DIAMOND CITY; the stunning action-packed conclusion to The City of Diamond and Steel duology
- LIKE HOME by Louisa Onomé (Feb 2021)—an exceptional YA story about community, friendship, and the effects of gentrification set in a fictional space in Toronto
- SWEET & BITTER MAGIC by Adrienne Tooley (March 2021)—a beautiful, sapphic story about witches dealing with the topics of grief, loneliness, and love
- BLOOD LIKE MAGIC by Liselle Sambury (June 2021)—a thrilling sci-fi fantasy about witches set in futuristic Toronto
- WINGS OF SHADOW by Nicki Pau Preto (July 2021)—third in CROWN OF FEATHERS series; the heart-stopping finale in which Veronyka must face her most devastating enemy yet: her own sister
- THRONEBREAKERS by Rebecca Coffindaffer (Oct 2021)—the electrifying conclusion to the CROWNCHASERS duology
- THE LOVE MATCH by Priyanka Taslim (2022)—a charming, Austen-esque YA rom-com about a Bangladeshi-American teen caught between two different boys and her mother’s matchmaking
