About
Originally from Scotland, Alison Flett has been writing since the early 1990s when she was part of a group of writers (including Irvine Welsh, Alan Warner, James Meek and Ali Smith) who were published by small presses Clocktower Press and Rebel Inc. Her work was also featured in many anthologies including: Dreamstate: New Scottish Poets (Polygon), Ahead Of Its Time (Jonathan Cape), Modern Scottish Women Poets (Canongate) and 100 Favourite Scottish Poems (Luath Press).
Photo: Andrew Noble
Alison's achievements during that time include winning the Belmont Prize for Children's Poetry and the Hi-Arts Short Story Competition as well as being shortlisted for the Scotsman/Orange Short Story Award. Her collection Whit Lassyz Ur Inty (Thirsty Books, 2004) was shortlisted for the prestigious Saltire First Book of the Year Award and she performed her work numerous times on national television and radio and at literary festivals in Britain and Europe. She was also a director on the board of the George Mackay Brown Fellowship and helped to set up and run the first Orkney Book Festival.
Since moving to Adelaide in 2010 she has been published in various anthologies and journals including Australian Poetry Journal, Cordite, Island, Plumwood Mountain, Rabbit, Southerly, Stylus Lit, Tincture and Westerly. She has also been longlisted for the Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize and the Bridport Short Story Prize (UK), shortlisted for the Whitmore Press Manuscript Award, the Adelaide Festival Unpublished Manuscript Award, The University of Canberra International Poetry Prize and the Newcastle Poetry Prize. In 2020 she won the Olga Masters Short Story Prize.
She was a frequent guest at Ken Bolton's famous Dark Horsey events and continues to feature regularly at No Wave and The Halifax Cafe.
She is an arts reviewer for InDaily, commissioning editor for the international journal Transnational Literature and publisher, with Jill Jones, at Little Windows Press. Her latest poetry collection, Where We Are, is available from Cordite Books.