BIO AND PROJECTS

Born in London, raised in Kerry, Ireland, I’m Alison Wells, writer of flash fiction, short stories and novels, and mother of four now living in Bray, Co. Wicklow. I’ve worked as a technical writer and have degrees in Psychology and Communication Studies and am now a library assistant in the Lexicon – Ireland’s largest public library. It contains 80,000 items!

I write fiction on the literary side, with a surreal edge and I always want to do new things. In (Jan 2019) my novel Eat! (arising out of an original flash fiction published in the Stinging Fly) was longlisted/highly commended in the Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair. In 2020 The Exhibit of Held Breaths was selected as finalist.

My short fiction has appeared in the Sunday Tribune, Crannóg, The View from Here, Metazen and in many anthologies including the Higgs Boson, Voices of Angels, Eighty Nine, Deck the Halls and UK National Flash Fiction Day’s Jawbreakers and Scraps, RTE Arena’s New Planet Cabaret, The Stinging Fly and The Lonely Crowd.

I’ve been shortlisted for Hennessy New Writing and for the Bridport, WOW, and Fish Awards, BBC’s Opening Lines, Over the Edge New Writer and  in the Bray Literary Festival flash fiction competition. I won the Big Book of Hope Ebook fiction category with my flash fiction medley Flashes of Entropy and Hope.

In 2012 and 2015 I was awarded writing residencies at Cill Rialaig, Ballinskelligs, Co. Kerry

For some time I blogged for the popular and comprehensive writing site Writing.ie (Random Acts of Optimism blog on Writing.ie)

Completed Novels  

The Exhibit of Held Breaths which explores the power of belief itself when an enthralling exhibit upturns the life of its  reluctant curator. Read three chapters

Eat!: Consumption becomes medicine for a girl with pica and a would-be cannibal in this linguistic feast of love, loss and longing set in boomtime Ireland. Read three chapters.

As A.B. Wells: My feel good comedy & science inspired novel Housewife with a Half-Life explores the adventures of Susan Strong a housewife who is literally disintegrating and her god-like fairly god-father (Fairly Dave) who guides her round her parallel universes on a quest for re-integration. Read three chapters

The Book of Remembered Possibilities: a woman destroys her own life by writing the story of her alternate self.

Work in Progress and Future Plans

Unusual Flashes of Light is a collection/novella of interrelated flash fiction tales, interlinked characters affected by love, longing and a belief in UFOs.

Other untitled notes in progress: The story of a man broken by news and his unravelling marriage, told through lists, click bait headlines, phishing emails and other media devices as he tries to find his way back to what is true.  

Feedback from Hennessey XO Literary Awards 2009  Judge Carlo Gebler

‘I was incredibly taken with this, it’s very poetic, the language is extraordinary, very finely wrought and beautiful. The events described are sinister/ frightening and although it was not realistic, within the context of the story and the rules that apply within the story it makes perfect sense. It’s very short, but what I admired, what we admired was this writer’s ambition which is fantastic.’ Carlo Gebler

Writing Achievements

Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair 2020 Finalist with The Exhibit of Held Breaths                       

Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair 2019 (Longlist) with Eat!                         

John McGahern Award shortlist 2019 (for emerging writers)

Pushcart Prize nomination 2021 via Crannóg

Short stories

Winner Big Book of Hope fiction category  2012 Flashes of Entropy and Hope:      

Shortlists

Hennessy XO Literary awards for New Irish Writing 2009 Bog Body

Bridport Prize 2010                                                   Gods and Other People

Bray Literary Festival Sept 2018                                    Entropy Held                                                        

Wow awards Galway 2014 (Longlist)                             The Princess & the Cryogenic Engineer         

Over the Edge, New Writers, Galway ,Sept 2014      My Father Made a Wood (Flash fiction)    

Over the Edge, New Writers, Galway, Oct 2013         The Memory Jar                                                         

RTE radio Arena New Planet Caberet Competition May 2013 The Wobegone’s Slaughtered Dreams           

Anam Cara Competition July 2012 Leather                                                            

International Fish Prize 2010 (also Sean O’ Faolain 2010 longlist) All that thinking:                                     

WOW awards Galway 2010 Sad about the plumbers’ uncle:                           

Sean O’ Faolain 2010 (Longlist) Filch  

 

                           

Publications: Short stories, poetry, Non-fiction

 

Without the light pollution I can see the stars Crannóg, October 2020

How I wrote ‘There’s a Café in this story     The Lonely Crowd online Sept/17

https://thelonelycrowd.org/2017/09/20/how–i–wrote–theres–a–cafe–in–this–story–alison–wells/

There’s a Café in this story                            The Lonely Crowd, July 2017

All that Thinking                                           Literary Orphans, Special Irish Issue, USA, April 2014

Eat!                                                               The Stinging Fly, Spring 2014

The Woebegone’s Slaughtered Dreams         New Planet Cabaret anthology, New Island, Nov 2013

Random Acts of Optimism                            Number Eleven, August 2013

Egg                                                               Scraps, National Flash Fiction Day Collection, June 2013

Letter                                                            Crannóg March 2013

Unfolding                                                     Deck the Halls, July 2012

Flashes of Entropy and Hope:                      The New Big Book of Hope, Y books, June 2012           

Elsewhere                                                    Jawbreakers, National Flash Fiction Day Collection, May 2012

Meringue                                                     Angel Collection, Bridgehouse Publishing, Dec 2011

Breaking News                                           Metazen, Oct 2011

If I could turn back time                              Literary Mix Tapes: 89, 2011

Truth and Silence                                        The View from Here, July 2011

Unwritten                                                     Crannog Magazine, October 2010

Supersymmetric: Almost but not quite          Higgs Boson Anthology April 2010

Sad about the Plumber’s Uncle                      WOW anthology, Words on the Street April 2010

Bog Body                                                       Sunday Tribune, New Irish Writing, Aug 2009

Last Time I saw Him & Home for Christmas   Ireland’s Own, 2002

The Flask                                                          Sunday Miscellany: The collection 2006-2008

If we thought that love was gone                      Poetry for Cancer 2010

ME ELSEWHERE

Random Acts of Optimism blog on Writing.ie

Dust Motes Appreciation Society 

A.B.Wells

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