Alison Fell (born 1944 in

Dumfries Dumfries ( ; sco, Dumfries; from gd, Dùn Phris ) is a market town and former royal burgh within the Dumfries and Galloway council area of Scotland. It is located near the mouth of the River Nith into the Solway Firth about by road from the ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

) is a Scottish

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...

and novelist with a particular interest in women's roles and political victims. Her poems have appeared in many anthologies. Her children's books also pass on social messages.

Life and work

Alison Fell was educated at

Dumfries Academy Dumfries ( ; sco, Dumfries; from gd, Dùn Phris ) is a market town and former royal burgh within the Dumfries and Galloway council area of Scotland. It is located near the mouth of the River Nith into the Solway Firth about by road from the ...

and

Edinburgh Art College Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) is one of eleven schools in the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Edinburgh. Tracing its history back to 1760, it provides higher education in art and design, architecture, histor ...

, from which she graduated as a sculptor. She began writing for ''Scotland Magazine'' in 1962. In 1967 she married a

Leeds University , mottoeng = And knowledge will be increased , established = 1831 – Leeds School of Medicine1874 – Yorkshire College of Science1884 - Yorkshire College1887 – affiliated to the federal Victoria University1904 – University of Leeds , ...

academic and bore a son. By 1970 she had separated and she moved to

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, where she co-founded the Woman's Street Theatre Group (later the Monstrous Regiment). An account of the company and Fell's life at this period appears in

Michèle Roberts Michèle Brigitte Roberts FRSL (born 20 May 1949) is a British writer, novelist and poet. She is the daughter of a French Catholic teacher mother (Monique Caulle) and English Protestant father (Reginald Roberts), and has dual UK–France nationa ...

's memoir ''Paper Houses''.Michèle Roberts, ''Paper Houses: A Memoir of the 70s and Beyond'', 2007, Virago, ; paperback 2008, .Virginia Blain, Patricia Clements and Isobel Grundy: ''The Feminist Companion to Literature in English'' (London: Batsford, 1990), p. 361. She worked at the underground newspaper ''

Ink Ink is a gel, sol, or solution that contains at least one colorant, such as a dye or pigment, and is used to color a surface to produce an image, text, or design. Ink is used for drawing or writing with a pen, brush, reed pen, or quill. Thi ...

'', and contributed to ''

Spare Rib ''Spare Rib'' was a second-wave feminist magazine, founded in 1972 in the United Kingdom, that emerged from the counter culture of the late 1960s as a consequence of meetings involving, among others, Rosie Boycott and Marsha Rowe. ''Spare Rib' ...

''. Fell's poems "speak for women, activists and political victims" and have been much anthologized. Her children's books ''Grey Dancer'' (1981) and ''The Bad Box'' (1987) "deal with growing up in left-wing working-class families." ''Kisses for Mayakovsky'' (1984) is a volume of them, and ''Every Move You Make'', published in the same year, is an autobiographical novel. She also contributed about herself in ''Truth, Dare or Promise: Girls Growing up in the Fifties'' (1985, edited by Liz Heron). In addition to her output of poetry and fiction, she held the School of English and American Studies Writing Fellowship at the

University of East Anglia The University of East Anglia (UEA) is a public research university in Norwich, England. Established in 1963 on a campus west of the city centre, the university has four faculties and 26 schools of study. The annual income of the institution f ...

in 1998.Alison Fell page
at

British Council The British Council is a British organisation specialising in international cultural and educational opportunities. It works in over 100 countries: promoting a wider knowledge of the United Kingdom and the English language (and the Welsh lan ...

Literature.

Awards

*1984:

Alice Hunt Bartlett Prize The Alice Hunt Bartlett Prize was awarded by the Poetry Society of London for a collection of poetry. It is named after Alice Hunt Bartlett who was the American editor of the society's ''Poetry Review'' from 1923 to 1949. The prize was establish ...

for ''Kisses for Mayakovsky'' *1991:

Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature The Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature is an annual prize of £3,000 awarded by the Boardman Tasker Charitable Trust to an author or authors for "an original work which has made an outstanding contribution to mountain literature". The pr ...

for ''Mer de Glace'' *2002–2003:

Royal Literary Fund The Royal Literary Fund (RLF) is a benevolent fund that gives assistance to published British writers in financial difficulties. Founded in 1790, and granted a royal charter in 1818, the Fund has helped an extensive roll of authors through its long ...

Fellowship

Works

Poetry

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Novels

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Anthology

Editor

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References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Fell, Alison 1944 births Academics of the University of East Anglia Boardman Tasker Prize winners Living people Scottish women poets Scottish women novelists