Ashleigh Young (born 1983) is a poet, essayist, editor and creative writing teacher. She received the Windham-Campbell Literature Prize in 2017 for her second book, a collection of personal essays titled Can You Tolerate This? which also won the Royal Society Te Apārangi Award for General Non-Fiction. She lives in Wellington, New Zealand.
Life
Young was born in 1983 in Te Kūiti[1] and grew up there and in Wellington.[2] Writing featured in her life from childhood, when she wrote and illustrated a series of small books, started a magazine, created her own bedroom library,[3][4] and (with her brothers) made movies with a borrowed video camera.[5]
She lived in London for several years[6] and also worked for a year as director of the Katherine Mansfield House and Garden in Wellington, a house in which "you could step inside and imagine yourself to be a child in another century.[7][5]
She took writing workshops with Kate De Goldi and Harry Ricketts[14] and began writing chapter books for Learning Media, which she credits with teaching her editing skills.[5] Her poetry and essays have been widely published in print and online journals, including Tell You What: Great New Zealand Nonfiction, Five Dials (UK) and The Griffith Review (Australia).[10]
The collection of essays in her second book, Can You Tolerate This?, have been described as "wry, confessional, understated and often hilarious".[15] The book won the 2017 Windham-Campbell Prize from Yale University,[16][17] and was described by the judges as "honest, insightful prose" that "offers intimate and playful glimpses of coming of age in small-town New Zealand".[16] Young was the first New Zealander to win this prize. Recipients are not advised that they are being considered for the award, and she had no prior warning before receiving an email to say she had won.[18][19] She collected her prize at the Windham Campbell Festival at Yale in September 2017.[20]Can You Tolerate This? also won the Royal Society Te Apārangi Award for General Non-Fiction 2017.[21]
She has been invited to appear in a number of literary festivals. In 2016, she took part in the Ruapehu Festival, including a session with James Brown and Bill Nelson on Poets Who Cycle.[23] In 2017, she appeared at the Auckland Writers Festival[24] and the Dunedin Writers & Readers Festival.[25] In 2018, she appeared at the New Zealand Festival Writers & Readers Week,[26][27] the Sydney Writers Festival,[28] the Bathurst Writers’ & Readers’ Festival,[29] Adelaide Writers' Week[30] and the Cheltenham Literature Festival.[31]
She is an editor at Victoria University Press.[32][16] She previously co-taught a Science Writing Workshop at Victoria University with Rebecca Priestley.[5] In 2019 she took on the role of poetry editor at The Spinoff Review of Books.[33]
^ abBird, Hera Lindsay (31 October 2012). "Magnificent Moon". The Pantograph Punch. Archived from the original on 21 January 2019. Retrieved 20 January 2019.
^ ab"Ashleigh Young". Victoria University Press. Retrieved 20 January 2019.
^Gilman, Rachel A.G. (16 January 2019). "Bookworm Beat: Ashleigh Young". The rational creature: a feminist journal and blog. Retrieved 20 January 2019.
