Growing up in a small town in South Carolina, Ashley Poston found community in writing. “I got picked on as a kid because I had a pretty bad speech impediment where I stuttered a lot, and so I turned to writing,” Poston tells Observer of her earliest writing days in grade school. “I found most of my people online in the fanfic community, and they helped me sort of figure out who I was.” That creative space also helped Poston fine-tune her writing skills across multiple genres, earning her local awards for playwriting before she even graduated high school. While studying English at the University of South Carolina, Poston started working as a graphic designer and marketing designer for publishing companies before ultimately signing with an agent and publishing her first YA novel in 2017.

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“After six YA books, 2020 happened, and I didn’t have any more contracts. I had this idea that I did not think would go anywhere, so I asked my agent, ‘Do you think anyone would read about ghosts in this day and age?’” Poston’s agent gave her the green light, and that idea eventually developed into 2022’s The Dead........

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