Ashley Stokes is the author of Gigantic (Unsung Stories, 2021), The Syllabus of Errors (Unthank Books, 2013) and Voice (TLC Press, 2019), and editor of the Unthology series and The End: Fifteen Endings to Fifteen Paintings (Unthank Books, 2016). His recent short fiction includes Subtemple in Black Static; The Validations in Nightscript, Black Slab in The Ghastling; Replacement Bus Service in Out of Darkness (edited by Dan Coxon, Unsung Stories), and Fade to Black in This is not a Horror Story (edited by JD Keown, Night Terror Novels). Other stories have appeared in Tales from the Shadow Booth Vol. 4, BFS Horizons, Bare Fiction, The Lonely Crowd, the Warwick Review, Storgy and more. He lives in the East of England where he’s a ghost and ghostwriter.


"Touching the Starfish is a very funny and accessible book. It is a fine first novel." Eastern Daily Press.

"Lovers of mitteleuropa period fiction, or of contemporary fiction, or – ideally – both, will love this book. It’s Joseph Roth meets Roberto Bolaño, and it is simply wonderful." David Rose on The Syllabus of Errors.