Have you seen the new Sad Mag yet? For issue no. 14, FANTASY, we launched our first ever fic­tion con­test, invit­ing new writ­ers to sub­mit their weird­est and wildest sto­ries for the chance to win a $250 cash prize and to get their story in print!

Fantasy Fiction winner for her story, “The Stars/Les Étoiles,” Ashleigh Kay Rajala is basking in the warm glow of coming out on top and moving forward.  Ready to focus on a new chapter in her life, Ashleigh sits back to talk about recent events and “The Stars/Les Étoiles,” and how the two have brought her here.

Sad Mag: Tell me about yourself.
Ashleigh Rajala:  My name is Ashleigh, I’m 30 years old, from Vancouver, born and raised. I have one younger sister who I had a very typical childhood with, one where we both loved and hated each other. I…just got married in March…and [my husband and I] both thought about moving away or traveling so we…[recently went] to the UK to check some things out.  We’ve just returned and are now staying with my parents until we find a place we want to live here in Vancouver.  I’m really looking forward to taking a breather and relaxing!

SM: Sounds like you’ve had a busy couple of years!  What about the writing?
AR: I studied at SFU where I did a double major in English and Archeology and…did a film program for a couple of semesters at Langara….We did a few short films that were screened at film festivals around the world and one of the shorts I did was selected to close out ‘Stepping Stone’, a film festival in India….As far as writing goes, I’ve been writing ever since I was little.  I remember when I was 5 years old I had pneumonia and I was in the hospital for three weeks and so I wrote a story about a dinosaur (laughs) and so really, writing has been the only constant in my life….I never really took a decision to start writing, it just sort of happened and it was something I have just always done.

SM: How did you get involved with this contest and SAD MAG?
AR: I heard about the magazine and this contest through my friend Taryn…[She] works for the Vancouver Co-Op Radio and she hosts a storytelling show on Sunday nights. She had read the short story I submitted for SAD MAG and really liked it and was encouraging me to do something with it…She was the one who told me about the Fantasy Fiction Contest with SAD MAG so I decided to enter my story.

SM: So tell me about your story. When did you write it and how did you come up with the idea?
AR: Well, I wrote the story about a year and a half ago…Usually when I begin to write something I have ideas about the premise but I remember with this story I had more of an idea of the characters, the little girl especially…I don’t remember specifically but it really was more about the voice and wanting to write a children’s story but not for children. I remember I really wanted that style, that voice and I think I just started writing about that character and I had this vague idea of what I wanted to do and it just came….I’m really bad at making outlines of stories or notes with things and I will but I end up changing things around…[and so] I remember this story feeling it coming to me organically, not so much something I planned out…I guess I know when something is working because it feels effortless and it just flows out.

SM:  What about the character(s) in “The Stars/Les Étoiles”? Did they, the little girl in particular, embody some of you or were the characters completely fictional?
AR: For this story…I don’t think the little girl was me or that there was necessarily an exact moment in time where I may have felt this way….[but] I think everyone goes through a point in their life where they want to somehow break out and be noticed.  I don’t think my story and this character is about me in the way that I didn’t feel how the little girl felt – she wanted to be noticed by her father – and I didn’t have those kinds of issues with my Dad.  I think rather than being that father/child dynamic this story was more about growing up and adjusting to the changes in life….I think the idea was aimed at dreams and goals shifting from thinking “oh, I’m going to grow up and be something”…to having a realization that you wouldn`t have wanted that at a later age.  I think that was kind of what happened to the girl in the end of the story, where she found herself alone even after she got everything she asked for.

SM: It sounds to me that a ‘coming of age’ is an overarching theme for this story.  Would you say that’s true?
AR: Yes, definitely I would say that’s true!

SM: It also sounds like this story has helped you to do a lot of soul searching of your own!  So what now?  Where do you go from here?
AR: Well, I really feel that I’m ready to settle down and focus more on my writing…[After being away] in the UK for a couple of months and coming home now I feel ready to set things up and move forward…I feel like I’ve been squeezing time in the between everything else and now I feel ready to pursue more and take on things that I feel would fit…At the end of the day, I am just really happy to be sitting down and writing [smiles].

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What else will sub­scribers find in the newest issue?

Sad Mag no.14, the Fan­tasy issue, goes beyond the bed­room to explore the deep­est fan­tasies of Vancouver’s writ­ers, come­di­ans, artists and pho­tog­ra­phers…. Oh, and there’s plenty of bed­room too.