September 21, 2026
A Fall Letter from Ashley
Hello friends,
Somehow, we’ve arrived at fall. It was one long slog of a very hot prairie summer, that is for sure.
But it was full of travel, writing, shows, new music, long days, and a lot of miles. And now the light is beginning to change, the evenings are arriving a little earlier, and I find myself in that familiar place of looking back at what has just happened while beginning to wonder what comes next.
For the first time in a long time, I can say that "Songs I Was Raised On: Songs of Love, Hope, & Peace" is finished. Really finished. The second part (Side B) having come out in May.
This project began as a collection of songs from 1962–1975 that I grew up loving, but somewhere along the way it became something much larger for me, a way of looking back at the music that formed me, the people who wrote it, and the extraordinary years from which it came. After all the recording, writing, releasing and storytelling, both sides are finally out in the world, and the double album is now available on vinyl.
Be sure to check out the cool merch that we created for it too!
There is a strange feeling that comes with finishing something that has occupied so much of your creative life. You spend years asking yourself how to finish it, and then suddenly the question becomes: What do I make now?
I think some of the answer began arriving this summer.
I released a few streaming singles over these past few months, including my newest original, “Weather Stations.” After spending so much time inhabiting songs written by other people, songs I have loved nearly my entire life, it feels good to be writing my way forward again. I don’t know yet what these new songs are becoming or whether they belong to something larger. For once, I’m trying not to decide too quickly. I’m following them and seeing where they lead.
This fall is also bringing together some of the other parts of my life that don’t always make it onto the music pages.
Some of you may not know that I’m also a Reiki Master and energy healer. I became a Reiki Master in 2020, and in the years since, I’ve worked with hundreds of people through treatments, teaching in Asia and my healing practice in Lawrence. In October, I’ll be teaching a new four-day (click here) Reiki Level I course, October 8–11. I’ve missed teaching this work in a deeper, immersive way, and I’m very much looking forward to opening that door again. And this will mark the first time I've taught Reiki in the US!
I’m also returning this fall to Belmont University, my alma mater, where I’ll spend a week teaching and will be one of the guest speakers for their annual Humanities Symposium. There’s something wonderfully strange about going back to a place where you once sat in the classroom and returning all these years later to stand at the front of it. Belmont was an important part of my becoming a writer and musician, and I love getting to return and work with students. *If you're interested in my main talk, drop me a line and I'll send you the outline.
Then I'm headed to Paris to celebrate a big decade b-day for my mother, then a bit of a Roman trail spending time in Carthage (Tunis) and to Rome, northern Italy, and Dublin. I'm sure this trail may give you hints as to what I might be coming next. Stay tuned, but follow me on IG for travel pics!
And then, before we know it, Winter. My favorite season. Where we get to shed it all.
My annual Winter Solstice Concert a the University of Kansas returns December 15th. Over the years, this night has become much more than another concert on the calendar for me. There is something about gathering in the darkest part of the year, in a room full of people, and making music together that feels increasingly necessary. I’m already beginning to dream about what this year’s evening will become, and I hope many of you will be there. Let's have it the largest crowd yet! *Tix will go on sale in a couple of weeks but save that date!
It’s funny. Music, writing, teaching and healing can look like completely different lives when I write them down like this. But they have never really felt separate to me. They all ask us to pay attention. To listen. To be present with one another. To show up for people and to notice what is happening beneath the obvious things. To seek to be known in a way. *the question that "Weather Stations" asks.
Maybe that’s what I’m thinking about most as I head into this new season: paying attention.
To what has ended. To what is beginning. And especially to the things that haven’t quite revealed themselves yet.
Thank you, as always, for continuing to walk alongside me through all of it, for listening to the records, coming to the shows, reading these letters, and allowing me the freedom to keep following wherever the work leads.
Here’s to fall, and to whatever comes next.
With love always,
AD