Welcome to Throughlines
Where art is a necessity. Let's get through this together!
Hello and welcome to the first-ever edition of Throughlines [internal screaming], where we’ll explore the threads of storytelling, identity, and self-discovery.
For as long as I can remember, writing has been my way of making sense of the world—whether it's through the lens of journalism, personal essays, fiction, or poetry. But in the last few years, I’ve realized that the stories I tell aren’t just about what I write—they’re about who we are, how we move through the world, and the threads that connect all of us.
Before I get started, let’s quickly set a few expectations, both for me as the author and for you as my lovely audience.
You can expect a new issue every week (on Tuesdays for now).
There will be opportunities to deepen your ~monetary~ commitment to my work as I in turn deepen my commitment to providing content worth paying for. As we start out, though, my posts will be free.
I’d love to hear your thoughts as we begin this journey together. I truly want Throughlines to feel like a community. Please feel free to reply to this email or reach out on social media to share your own stories or tell me what you’d like to see in future issues.
A brief recounting of the facts
So what are we really doing here? And by here, I mean in your inbox.
I feel in my body that Throughlines has been a long time coming, but it only managed to sneak past my subconscious to the front of my mind when my world was rocked on Valentine’s Day of this year.
No, I wasn’t stood up by a wishy-washy date: I was fired from the best job I’d ever had.
Illegally.
More specifically, as my extended family stood around me in our vacation Air bnb at 9:30 p.m. in Arizona and my fiancé hovered over his texts in Virginia, I opened my work laptop to find a message at the top of my inbox titled “Read this email immediately.”
I opened the ominous message to find a letter from a new HR address saying that my “performance has not been adequate to justify further employment at the Agency.” This letter was identical to letters every probationary employee (or person who had been a federal employee for two years or fewer) at my agency received. Logically, there was no proof of poor performance — and I’d just received a well-documented stellar annual performance review two weeks prior. The letter kindly granted me paid leave for the next month. Within the next hour, I’d lost access to all of my work accounts.
That was the end to my official time on the communications and policy team at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of AIDS Research.
My family members gathered around me in the kitchen happened to stand on both sides of the political aisle. As is the Minnesotan way, those who voted for the president that caused their niece to lose her job slowly and silently slipped to the other room as I crashed out.
So that was my Valentine’s Day!
In the weeks that followed, I grieved the blooming career I’d lost by leaning into anger. I joined a class-action lawsuit, formally disputed my termination, joined hundreds of other fired employees at the Capitol to urge senators to act, and made noise on social media. Meanwhile, my beloved colleagues continued on to have a front-row seat to the destruction of our country’s scientific research ecosystem.
As I watched from afar, the cases of probationary employees across the federal government were taken up by the courts: A District Court judge in Maryland ruled that we must be reinstated immediately. On St. Patrick’s Day (the fates clearly have a thing for minor holidays) I received another email titled, you guessed it, “Read this email immediately,” informing me that I’d be on paid administrative leave “until further notice.”
Art is a necessity
While DOGE continues to push HHS towards the proverbial guillotine, I’m sitting here on administrative leave awaiting the day when they figure out how to fire me legally.
The clock is ticking. And the pressure forced me to think outside of the box.
In times of major upheaval, such as where we find ourselves today, I argue that art is not a luxury but a necessity. In “normal” times, as we float through our day-to-day lives, we may enjoy art in museums on the weekends or via social media on our commute to work. The world is full of logic, science, and routine. Until it’s not.
Until you lose your job.
Until your grandmother dies.
Until your closest friend betrays you.
Until your country begins a steep decline into fascism.
When all hell breaks loose, we look to art to help us sort out how to feel. We look to songs to capture raw human emotion. We paint our anger onto protest signs. We look to poetry to put words to feelings we couldn’t explain ourselves.
Following that throughline, I realized that the most important thing I can do in this moment is to continue to write like my life depends on it.
Writing creatively is gathering all the intangible odds and ends hovering around your head into a hard stone and scratching at it over and over until you draw water. Sometimes, writing creatively is picking at your emotional scabs until they bleed again. It is baring intimate moments for the world to see in the hopes that they can relate. It is encouraging people to feel. Because what else do we have, really?
It often feels like a hazy, unfocused line between narcissism and altruism.
Whatever creative writing really is, I know now that it’s all I want to do. It’s what I’m best at. It only took me four years of journalism school, a master’s degree, and two short-lived careers to get here.
Before all this, I was journalist. I spent countless hours uncovering hidden truths, but I’ve realized it’s the personal truths—those buried deeper in the intersection of identity, creativity, and the human experience—that truly drive my work. And in my fiction and poetry, I’ve found ways to explore the queer experience, personal growth, and the complexities of belonging. All of this will come together in Throughlines over the next several weeks.
I’m so happy you’re here — let’s get through this together.
xx Ashley
Afterthoughts: Media I consumed instead of doomscrolling this week
3 Subtle Things That are Hurting Your Writing and Creativity,
. I love Amy’s weekly writing job board, and can’t recommend it enough to folks looking for creative and copywriting gigs. This post was a good reminder that writing is not just the act of sitting in front of your computer. It takes more.Last Night at the Telegraph Club, a novel by Malinda Lo. I’m about 1/3 of the way through this heartwarming, wlw coming-of-age story. Loving it so far. Have any of you read it? Please let me know if you have any recommendations for my next read!
The Oriental: Othering Explored in Season 3 of White Lotus, by
. Jeanne is a teacher by trade and a sociologist by training, so you know her social commentary will always hit. I am eagerly awaiting the season finale of White Lotus later this evening, and reading Jeanne’s take on how the season explores colonialism, misogyny, and sexism was a great way to dive deeper into everyone’s favorite show.