Ashleigh Renée

Interviewer: Ashleigh, can you tell us about your journey as a writer?

Ashleigh: Certainly! Since I was a child, I’ve been making up stories to entertain people in my unique style and creativity — or try to get myself out of trouble that I had created. (Lie? Why, what child would possibly ever lie to their parents about something that they had done that they knew they shouldn’t have, or weren’t supposed to? 😇 )

I began writing for publication in high school, during my journalism classes, and in my enior year, I became the editor of our school newspaper, which unfortunately for me, I had to write most of it, as the majority of the journalism class was more invested in producing the yearbook than they were the monthly newspaper. The experience served me well, later, when I actually worked for a newspaper in the 1980s, even if it was writing advertising.

Between high school and then, however, I had written for several magazines, including Green Egg Magazine, The Georgian Newsletter, Pentalpha, and The Crystal Well, all of which were Pagan publications in the 1970s and 1980s. That continued somewhat sporadically throughout the rest of the 20th century, but I was also busy getting married and starting a family.

Interviewer: You took a significant break from writing fiction. What brought you back?

Ashleigh: Yeah, somewhere around a 20-year break. A long-time friend convinced me to join a murder mystery writing project with them. We worked on it for two years before it ended, but I’ve continued writing, using some of the characters and plots from that project.

Interviewer: You write under various pen names. Can you tell us more about that?

Ashleigh: Sure! I’ve used different pen names for various kinds of writing. As Ash McSidhe, I’ve written about folklore, Tarot, and Witchcraft. Ren Duvall was the name my former partner and I chose for a murder mystery we worked on together. After we parted ways, they kindly let me keep the name and the rights to the project, which I’ve continued working on. Siobhan McNorry was the name I used for romance stories and some poetry, though I’ve also written poetry under my real name.

Recently however, I’ve been rethinking using so many different names. It can be confusing for readers to keep track of, and some writer friends have shared similar experiences. Moving forward, I’ll just use Ashleigh Renée, Ash McSidhe, or A.R. Mitchell, which is my actual surname. It’s simpler and ties everything back to me, and my website.

Interviewer: So, what inspired your esoteric writing?

Ashleigh: Oh, there’s a lot to unpack with that question! I had a number of childhood experiences which made me interested in fairy tales, mythology and folklore, showing me a world of possibilities. As a teenager, I left my childhood religion due to some other negative experiences within the church we attended and explored other faiths like Catholicism, other forms of Protestantism, Judaism, and Buddhism. In University, I majored in Religious Studies and joined a Wiccan group. By then, I had been studying Tarot for years and started learning astrology, only to discover that our instructor was barely two lessons ahead of those they were teaching!

Interviewer: You self-published a book in 1975. Can you tell us about it?

Ashleigh: Ah, vanity, thy name is self-published, at least back then. These days, it’s pretty common. I self-published “How the Devil Got His Horns, and Other Tails,” a small collection of poems and stories from my childhood. It included a story about the Devil appearing in my closet, when I was around age five and telling his version of the “Fall from Heaven.” (He got his horns because when he fell, his halo broke and got stuck in his head! That’s five year old logic, I suppose.) My grandmother gave me advice on how to question spirits, which I later found out was common instruction in Spiritualist Churches in the 1930s, which, coincidentally, was around the same period in time that she “got religion” and threw her dowsing pendulum into the Pecos River and then cried for a week because she couldn’t get it back; at least that’s what my father told me years after she had died. I don’t know how she heard about my “visitor, because I know that I didn’t tell her, and I don’t recall even telling my parents about this. No idea how she knew, but she did. Funny thing about that night. the light switch in that bedroom always worked backwards after that night – if the switch was in the down position the light was on. If it was in the up position, the light was off. No one ever commented about that, either. That’s one of those “childhood experiences”, by the way … there were more than a few, actually.

Interviewer: Ashleigh, what are you currently working on?

Ashleigh: Right now, I’m working on the Eld Island Mystery series, with the first book titled “Good Bones,” under the pen name Ren Duvall.

Interviewer: That sounds intriguing! Can you give us a brief synopsis?

Ashleigh: Sure! “Good Bones” follows Marina MacLeod, who returns to her Pacific Northwest island hometown to recover from a car accident and the collapse of her twenty-year marriage. She expects a quiet restart, but peace proves elusive on Eld Island. When she’s assigned to show the long-abandoned Archer House to a mysterious buyer, she finds a dead body blocking the entrance—and her past catching up with her faster than she expected.

With her broken arm still in a cast and no license yet restored, Marina calls on her childhood friend Brooke Morningstar, a Navy veteran turned B&B Owner, to drive her to the showing. Brooke’s wife, Dr. Anna Jones—former veterinarian and reluctant coroner for Grace Harbor County—arrives soon after to process the scene. They quickly discover that the body isn’t the only thing buried beneath the dust and ivy of the Archer estate.

As secrets begin to surface about the house, the dead man, and the people who want it kept quiet, old friendships are tested, new truths unearthed, and danger edges closer than anyone expected. Tied together by community, trauma, and an instinct for justice, Anna, Brooke, and Marina must unravel the mystery before someone else ends up dead.

Interviewer: That sounds like a gripping read! What can readers expect from “Good Bones”?

Ashleigh: “Good Bones” is a darkly atmospheric mystery with a touch of dry humor and deeply human characters. It’s a queer-forward story steeped in history, loss, and the unspoken truths of a small island that remembers everything.

Interviewer: Are there any tie-in stories related to “Good Bones”?

Ashleigh: Yes, there are a number of them. Several featuring Anna and Brooke much earlier in their relationship. One story is set in New Orleans, shortly after Brooke has been medically discharged following her injuries in the War on Terrorism. Another story takes place a couple of years later, when Brooke “officially” turns seven years old (she’s a Leap Day baby, so only gets a real birthday once every four years). At that point, their child, Riley, is only two months old. Riley is around 16 in “Good Bones” and is non-binary.

Interviewer: What other projects are you working on?

Ashleigh: More timely, Brooke’s grandparents, Józef Schwartz and Anastazja Czarny, have begun telling me their story. It’s particularly timely, given what is happening in the United States right now (April 2025). This has become a series in its own right, called “The Dreams That Carried Us,” a trilogy by Ashleigh Renée.

Interviewer: Can you tell us more about this trilogy?

Ashleigh: Absolutely.

Part 1: Unseen: The Dream That Carried Hope After narrowly escaping death in the destruction of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Zigeunerfamilienlager (“Gypsy” Family Camp), Anastazja Czarny—later called Chava—is rescued by a small group of women who risk everything to protect her from the brutal realities of the camp. As the days pass in constant fear of discovery, a fragile hope is sparked when she meets Józef, a fellow prisoner, whose quiet strength and shared suffering draw them together. In the midst of darkness and despair, a growing connection between Chava and Józef begins to blossom, offering a fleeting yet powerful chance at survival—and love—in a world bent on crushing both.

Part 2: Unbroken: The Dream with Nowhere to Grow Following the death march from Auschwitz, Józef is left broken and uncertain as he arrives at the Dachau concentration camp. In the midst of his hopelessness, he clings to the memory of Chava, unsure if she is alive or dead. Struggling with loss and trauma, he must find a way to survive, as well as hold onto the faint hope of reuniting with her—if she still lives. Yet, even in Dachau’s bleakest hours, Józef discovers that the seeds of resilience and a chance at renewal may still lie within, even when the dream seems impossible to reach.

Part 3: Unbound: The Dream Reached for the Sun Józef and Chava, now reunited after the war, must forge a new life together in a world forever changed by the horrors they survived. From the devastation of postwar Prague to the challenges of emigration, their love and determination are tested as they begin to rebuild, knowing the path ahead is uncertain. As they struggle to put the past behind them and secure a future in New Orleans, they realize that the dreams they once carried—of survival, of freedom, and of love—can still grow, but only if they dare to reach for them, no matter how far the horizon may seem.

(And yes, both Zigeuner and Gypsy are ethinc slurs, and are used soley in the historic context as such when use in sineage and speech by those who would be using them. Otherwise I use Roma or Romani when speaking of the people, language and culture.)

Interviewer: That sounds like a powerful and timely series. How do you feel about writing these stories?

Ashleigh: It’s incredibly meaningful to write these stories, especially given the current context. They offer a me chance to explore resilience, hope, and the enduring power of love in the face of unimaginable adversity. “Unseen” is in revisions, “Unbroken” nearly completed in draft.  “Unbound” is just being drafted.

More recently, Anna’s parents have begun telling the story of how they met, and the difficulties they experienced as a mixed culture couple in the 1970s of Wales, and I’ve learned things about her father I was unaware of as well – that he’s a retired police constable, for one, came as a huge surprise, it was totally not what I had thought he had been..

Interviewer: It sounds like you have a rich and interconnected world in your series. How do these tie-in stories add to the main narrative?

Ashleigh: These tie-in stories provide deeper insights into Anna and Brooke’s relationship and their backgrounds. They help readers understand the characters’ motivations and the dynamics that shape their actions in Good Bones. I was catching up with my former writing partner the other day, and we were discussing all of this, and they commened that it sounds like I’m working on some massive multi-generational family saga or something. Which, in ways it does, but it certainly wasn’t in tended that way! I initially just needed some names for character background of Anna and Brooke, and the next thing I knew, I had their families outlined back four generations! That’s what I get for also being a family historian, I guess.