About Asha

Asha Rajan is a writer and editor who lives and creates on Whadjuk, Noongar boodjar, land which was never ceded. She acknowledges with respect the elders and custodians; the first storytellers, songwriters and poets of this land.
Asha has been a Contributing Editor at the online writing community, YeahWrite, since December 2016. She is also a judge for various Super Challenge competitions for YeahWrite. Asha was an editor at the online literary micro-essay blog, Dead Housekeeping, from January 2015 to May 2020. She became the Managing Editor at Dead Housekeeping in May 2020; a position she continues to hold.
Asha is also a freelance editor who’s interested in a wide variety of editing projects.
Zoom or In-Person Events
Coffee and Grief: Coffee Talk #39 (recorded reading) [October 6, 2022 10am AWST (UTC+8)]. Read the text of this essay here.
Society of Women Writers WA, Wednesday Writing Class: Flash and Micro Fiction [September/October, 2022]
YeahWrite Scarlet Quill Society: “Sensitivity Readers” (panel discussion – recorded) [July, 2022]
Society of Women Writers WA, Wednesday Writing Class: Creative Non-Fiction (workshop/class) [June, 2022]
Death Rattle: “Literally Crawling” (poetry reading) [November 5, 2021]
Unchaste Readers: Unchaste Variety Show (poetry reading) [May 29, 2021]
Publications & Awards
Marj Wilke Short Story Award 2022, Women Writers Queensland (highly commended)
- Death in the Funeral Parlour (short/flash)
The Drabble
- New Beginnings, Old Endings (flash fiction)
Portside Review, Issue 7
- Wild Goose (flash fiction)

Mountain Bluebird Magazine, Issue 1
- The Perils of Caring (poem)
100 Word Project

- Haunted House (micro fiction)
Instantáneas de Ficción Vol. 3
- Translated into Spanish: The Innocence of Mabel Cunderdin and Charlie
Brushstrokes II (anthology)
- Matriliny (poem)
Grieve 2021 (anthology)
- My Father’s Hands (poem)
Underground Writers Zine Issue #34 (Fan Fiction)
- You Can Have it All (poem)
Rabbit #32 (Form)

- Boys Standing on a Footpath (poem)
Society of Women Writers WA:
Bronze Quill Award 2020 (winner)
A Sense of Place (2020 – anthology)
- The Summer People
The Cyberettes (2021 – anthology)
- Timothy and the Crocodile
Peril Magazine
- The Gradual Disappearance of Ambika Krishnan: Before Ambika could read words, she read her mother.
Heroines Women’s Writing Prize 2020: The Neo Perennial Press
- Highly Commended (Short Fiction)
Ellipsis Zine
- Charlie: The day my oldest son ran away from home, a wedge-tailed eagle took up residence in his room. Nobody knew where it had come from, or where he had gone.
Modern Loss
- Loss Squared: One moment, I was planning a long-awaited trip to East Africa. The next, I was facing down two life-or-death decisions.
Pank
- Pictures of You: Ammamma

It Starts With Hope
- Immortal Hope: ‘Hope is born on the wings of choices…’
SheKnows:
- I force my kids to take selfies with me and I’m not the least bit sorry
Dead Housekeeping
- How to Say No
- How to Organise a Mother’s Day Party
- Chasing Away Shadows
- Warding Off the Evil Eye
- Wine Trifle
- Rajeshwari’s Guide to the Care and Keeping of Cats
- How to Clean Crabs: Or the Finer Points of First Aid with Seafood
Profile image credit: Kelly Hammond Photography
Header image credit: Jess Gately