ALI SMITH

'Ali Smith' is a writer, born in 1962 in Inverness, Scotland, to working-class parents. She was raised in a council house in Inverness and now lives in Cambridge. She studied at Aberdeen, and then at Cambridge, for a Ph.D. that was never finished. In a 2004 interview with writing magazine ''Mslexia'', she talked briefly about the difficulty of becoming ill with chronic fatigue syndrome for a year and how it forced her to give up her job as a lecturer at University of Strathclyde to focus on what she really wanted to do: writing. Openly gay, she has been with her partner Sarah Wood for 17 years and dedicates all her books to her.
The following is an excerpt from her short biography at Guardian.

Her fondness for the grandscale and her employment of shifting perspectives, formal risk-taking and rich language all mark Smith out as a "literary" writer, but her confident, inventive tales also display a humour which lightens the ambitious themes she covers. Her penchant for wordplay and the pleasure she takes in the outlandish and idiosyncratic have, however, given rise to the criticism that she can on occasion stray a little too far into the arch. Ali Smith's books are imbued with a perceptiveness that is acute and probing for all that it is gentle and compassionate.

Contents

Short story collections

Novels

Other projects

External links

Short story collections

★ ''The Whole Story and Other Stories (2003)''

★ ''Other Stories and Other Stories (1999)''

★ ''Free Love and Other Stories (1995)'', awarded the Saltire First Book of the Year award.

Novels

★ ''The Myth of Iphis'' (2007)

★ ''The Accidental (2004)'', shortlisted for the 2005 Man Booker Prize and won the 2005 Whitbread Novel of the Year award.

★ ''Hotel World (2001)'', awarded the Encore Award, a Scottish Arts Council Book Award and the inaugural Scottish Arts Council Book of the Year Award. Shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction and the Man Booker Prize for Fiction.

★ ''Like (1997)''.

Other projects

Ali Smith partnered with the Scottish band Trashcan Sinatras and wrote the lyrics to a song called "Half An Apple", a simple, bittersweet love song about keeping half an apple spare for a loved one who is gone.
"Half An Apple" was released on March 5th, 2007, in the album ''Ballads of the Book'', a collaboration between some of Scotland’s top contemporary writers and poets, and established and upcoming Scottish musicians. It's a project originally set up by Roddy Woomble of Idlewild, while corresponding with poet Edwin Morgan. Woomble've got independent record label Chemikal Underground onboard, and received enthusiastic support of the Scottish Arts Council.
An article (You hum it and I'll sing it, ''Scotman.com'', January 14 2007) describes the author's contribution to the project as follows:

"Most of the pairings were decided intuitively with writers' verses doing the rounds until they found a suitable musical home. Ali Smith's offering, a pared down and poignant poem about love lost, called 'Half An Apple', was originally written for Kate Rusby. But when the folk singer had to pull out, Smith's poetry changed hands a number of times before it fell into the lap of Trashcan Sinatras who just "clicked" with it and ended up producing one of the most tender songs on the album."

External links

★ Ali Smith biography

★ Idle promise, Ballads of the Book project, ''The Scotsman'', January 13 2007

★ Mslexia back issue

★ Notes from north of the border, Ballads of the Book project, ''The Sunday Times'', January 21 2007

★ Life stories, ''The Guardian'', May 22 2005

★ A babel of voices, ''The Guardian'', April 19 2003

★ Astute Fiery Luxurious, ''The Guardian'', August 2 2003

★ LibraryThing author profile

★ Ballads of the Book Project, ''Official Site''

★ Novel approach struck a chord with Inverness writer, ''The Inverness Courier'', March 30 2007