Ashley Elizabeth Best
A-E Best is a disabled poet and essayist from Kingston, Ontario. Her work can be found in the Capilano Review, New Welsh Review, CV2, Ambit, Mslexia, and Chatelaine. Her poem My Grief is a Violence was longlisted for the 2022 CBC Poetry Prize. She is also part of the Villianelles, a women’s writing collective based in Kingston, ON. Find A-E on Instagram as @capitatelikeahead.
In her professional life, A-E has worked broadly as a literary and administrative professional for nonprofits with a strong background in publishing, communications, project, and administrative development.
Most recently, she has been enjoying guiding writers through the promotional process of releasing their books as a marketer and publicist for various publishers, and as an editorial and digital coordinator for literary magazines.
“Unflinching, rebellious candor . . . Best asks the hardest of questions in this love letter of a
collection to those grappling with contemporary life, experimenting with form, structure, and the
body itself.” — Rosebud Ben-Oni, winner of the Alice James Award for If This Is the Age We End
Discovery
“Within Ashley-Elizabeth Best’s tightly woven collection, when “the world became a waiting room,” when medical sexism, life in a disabled body, family dynamics, and gender-based violence made it ‘easier to trust in your suffering,’ Best shows us there is also joy; new love, pillow forts, butterflies. Bad Weather Mammals is an evocative and emotionally open book that understands ‘it is a privilege to have a story’; indeed, it is also a privilege to read this story. Best shows us the mould swelling the walls, the ‘comma of blood on the pillow,’ the teeth marks on the cheese block, and we are lucky for it.” —Conyer Clayton, author of But the sun, and the ships, and the fish, and the waves
Ashley-Elizabeth Best 