Ashe is a Melbourne-based author and family columnist for The Design Files. Her debut book began as a personal blog called Sad Pregnant Lady, which would become Sad Mum Lady (also the title of her new book). These days she’s a mother of two, and a somewhat happier person.
Today, Ashe is on the blog to answer our Ten Terrifying Questions. Read on …
Ashe Davenport
1. To begin with, why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself – where were you born? Raised? Schooled?
I was born in Melbourne, raised and schooled in Bayside.
2. What did you want to be when you were twelve, eighteen and thirty? And why?
At 12, I wanted to be Mama Rose in Gypsy, because her pain was larger than life, which meant she had the best songs. At 18, I wanted to be a TV journalist because it seemed like a respectable career that would still allow me to be a show-off. At 30, I wanted to be a writer because I was lonely and it seemed like a good way to make friends.
3. What strongly held belief did you have at eighteen that you do not have now?
That thongs go with anything (the shoe kind)
4. What were three works of art – film, book or piece of music, etc – you can now say, had a great effect on you and influenced your artistic career?
Painted Babies, a BBC documentary from the 90s on the child pageant world in the American South. I watched it religiously growing up. It was so dark. And I wanted all the outfits.
Anna Karenina was the first serious book I read outside of school. I savoured it across an entire year. It made me want to write.
Me Talk Pretty One Day, which is the first book I read by David Sedaris. It made me think that maybe someday I could write.
5. Considering the innumerable artistic avenues open to you, why did you choose to write this book?
I’m terrible at drawing and film would have required collaboration. The solitary aspect of writing suited my depression.
6. Please tell us about your book!
It’s a collection of essays about my excruciating birth as a mother.
7. What do you hope people take away with them after reading your book?
That they’re not alone and that I love them.
8. Whom do you most admire in the realm of writing and why?
David Sedaris for making painful things funny and baring the unbearable. Margaret Atwood for creating worlds you can smell, touch and taste.
9. Many artists set themselves very ambitious goals. What are yours?
Sad Mum Lady, the musical.
10. Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?
Keep going. Forgive yourself. Be kind to yourself.
Thank you for playing!
—Sad Mum Lady by Ashe Davenport (Allen & Unwin) is out now.
Sad Mum Lady
'If people knew how bad this was,' I said to a friend two weeks after the birth, nipples flashing red like emergency lights under my dressing-gown, 'they would be sterilised on their thirteenth birthdays.'
It sometimes feels like there's a rule for parents: if you're going to say anything mildly unhappy about parenting, you must also be at pains to stress that it is all worth it. What joy! What wonder! How lucky we are! But then there's the crying. And the body horror...
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