Eliza Waite – Alumni Stories, Ashley Sweeney
York St John Alumna, Ashley Sweeney (courtesy Karen Mullen)
American Alumna, Ashley Sweeney, has recently published her first novel, entitled Eliza Waite, through She Writes Press of Berkeley, California.
Ashley studied at York St John in 1977-78 as part of a study abroad programme from Wheaton College, in Norton, Massachusetts. Since returning to the USA after her time at York St John, Ashley went on to become an award winning journalist in Washington State.
Ashley’s novel, Eliza Waite, is the story of an intrepid young feminist who braves the trek to the Klondike during the Gold Rush of 1898 to open a successful bakery on Skagway, Alaska’s lawless streets after surviving three years alone on a remote island in the San Juan Islands archipelago in Washington State.
Eliza Waite
In 1898, a woman’s place was in the home, but for Eliza Waite, who has shamed her parents and who also recently lost her husband and only child, there is no “home,” only refuge on a remote island in the San Juan Islands of Washington State. Ungainly and bookish, she prefers her own company and subsists with careful planning. Her single joy is baking, which she rarely can afford to do.
Eliza has always chafed against society’s attitudes toward women. After reading some of the feminist writers of her time, and as she emerges from her grief, she begins to imagine new opportunities.
With a name change and no small dose of courage, Eliza boards the SS Ketchikan to the Klondike in search of her future, joining a rough crowd of fortune hunters, businessmen, gold diggers, con men, and prostitutes. She lands in Skagway, where she plans to start a bakery. With the support of new friends from unlikely quarters, Eliza flourishes, awakening to her power as a woman and as a business owner. She has great hope for her new life—until a familiar face haunts the streets of Skagway, threatening to undermine all she has built.
Ashley with YSJ International Student Director, Alan Pattie, December 1977
To find out more about Ashley, and her new novel Eliza Waite, please visit her website
Many thanks Ashley for sharing this with us, we wish you all the best with your novel.
