New Day Tuesday: The Farmacist by Ashley Farmer

It’s God’s day, but I wear thigh highs beneath my Bible. Maybe that’s why He took my flock. My lambkin lost, I feel forsaken. I witness crooks and necks that crane toward this skirt impractical for tending sheep or even nailing up Have You Seen Me? posters…

And so begins the chapter “Little Bo Peep Comes to Farm Town” in Ashley Farmer’s new novella from Jellyfish Highway Press, The Farmacist. Published on December 1st, The Farmacist is a terrifying clash between the Facebook platform game Farm Town (precursor to FarmVille) and reality; if you’ve ever used Facebook as a coping method for stress (and who hasn’t?), then you’ll empathize with the narrator. Gina Keicher, author of Wilderness Champion, said of the book: “The Farmacist cultivates survival, nostalgia, and community through surreal verve and melancholy tenderness. Splendid panoramas, ambitious toiling, flickers of Americana, a shared dream; Ashley Farmer illuminates the digital pastorals we rove and roam to connect, the vast pulsing heartlands we carry inside us.” This is Jellyfish Highway Press’s first publication, and you can get a copy at Jellyfish Highway Press, Barnes and Noble, or Amazon.