Alison MacLeod was raised in both Canada and the States, and has lived in England since 1987. She has published two critically acclaimed novels, The Changeling, in 1996, and The Wave Theory of Angels in 2005. Her short stories have been widely published, and broadcast on the BBC. Her short story collection, Fifteen Modern Tales of Attraction, was published by Hamish Hamilton/Penguin in 2007. It was 'highly recommended' by Time Out and deemed by the Guardian to be 'as inventive as it is original'.
In 2008, she was the recipient of the Society of Authors' Award for Short Fiction, while her collection was nominated for the International Frank O'Connor Award for Short Fiction and named one of the 'Top Ten Books to Talk About' in 2009 in association with World Book Day. In 2011, her story 'The Heart of Denis Noble' was shortlisted for the prestigious BBC National Short Story Award and in 2012, it was longlisted for The International Sunday Times EFG Award. Alongside her writing, she is Professor of Contemporary Fiction at the University of Chichester and is represented by David Godwin Associates, London.
In her work, MacLeod is interested, perhaps above all, in the force of the imagination in our lives. She is also drawn to stories of transformation; to those experiences of love, birth and death upon which our lives suddenly pivot. Her fictional range takes her readers from classic realism to the fantastic; from modern historical fiction to tales of the 21st century. Her work is preoccupied with the porous boundaries between fact and invention, history and story, and biography and the imagined life. She often explores the small intimacies of human experience, and particularly those junctions where the private and the public meet or collide.
Her next novel is due to be published by Hamish Hamilton in April 2013 and is set in Brighton, where she now lives.
You can see her in a video interview at the BookTrust site. Read about her Top Ten Stories at the Guardian site. You can also find interviews with her or by her at Radio 4's 'Front Row' site, the Bristol Short Story Award site, Matter Magazine online, and Thresholds International Short Story Forum. Her story 'The Heart of Denis Noble' is available online from AudioGo audio books, or read it at The Sunday Times Magazine Online in 'Fast Fiction'. You can also hear her story 'The Thaw' at Spoken Ink.
Find out more about her work and her upcoming appearances at 'Alison MacLeod' on Facebook, or contact her via David Godwin of David Godwin Associates (DGA), London.
