J. Ashley-Smith is a British–Australian writer of dark fiction and co-host of the Let The Cat In Podcast. His short stories have twice won national competitions and been shortlisted six times for Aurealis Awards, winning both Best Horror (Old Growth, 2017) and Best Fantasy (The Further Shore, 2018). His novelette, The Attic Tragedy, was released by Meerkat Press in June 2020 and won the Shirley Jackson Award. A novella, Ariadne, I Love You, was released in 2021. J. lives with his wife and two sons in the suburbs of North Canberra, gathering moth dust, tormented by the desolation of telegraph wires.