{{Short description|Scottish writer, born 1944}} {{Use dmy dates|date=January 2017}} {{Use British English|date=January 2017}} {{Infobox person/Wikidata | fetchwikidata=ALL | onlysourced=yes | dateformat = dmy|list=hlist}} '''Alison Fell''' (born 1944 in Dumfries, Scotland) is a Scottish poet 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 and Edinburgh Art College, from which she graduated as a sculptor.<ref name="Ref_"/> She began writing for ''Scotland Magazine'' in 1962. In 1967 she married a Leeds University academic and bore a son. By 1970 she had separated and she moved to London, where she co-founded the Woman's Street Theatre Group (later the Monstrous Regiment).<ref name="Ref_" /> An account of the company and Fell's life at this period appears in Michèle Roberts's memoir ''Paper Houses''.<ref>Michèle Roberts, ''Paper Houses: A Memoir of the 70s and Beyond'', 2007, Virago, {{ISBN|978-1844084074}}; paperback 2008, {{ISBN|978-1844084081}}.</ref><ref name="Feminist">Virginia Blain, Patricia Clements and Isobel Grundy: ''The Feminist Companion to Literature in English'' (London: Batsford, 1990), p. 361.</ref>

She worked at the underground newspaper ''Ink'',<ref name="Nigel1988">{{Cite book| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jiMOAAAAQAAJ&dq=Alison+Fell&pg=PA153 |title=Underground: the London alternative press, 1966–74 |author=Nigel Fountain |publisher=Taylor & Francis |year=1988 |isbn=978-0-415-00728-3}}</ref> and contributed to ''Spare Rib''.<ref name="Alison1976">{{Cite journal |author=Alison Fell |author-link=Alison Fell |date=March 1976 |title=Nights |journal=Spare Rib |issue=44 |pages=9–11 |publisher=Spare Ribs Ltd}}</ref>

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).<ref name="Feminist"/>

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 in 1998.<ref name="Ref_">[http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=auth158 Alison Fell page] at British Council Literature.</ref>

==Awards== *1984: Alice Hunt Bartlett Prize for ''Kisses for Mayakovsky'' *1991: Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature for ''Mer de Glace'' *2002–2003: Royal Literary Fund Fellowship

==Works== ===Poetry=== *{{Cite book |title=Smile, Smile, Smile, Smile |publisher=Sheba |year=1980 |isbn=978-0-907179-03-0}} *{{Cite book |title=Kisses for Mayakovsky| publisher=Virago| year=1984| isbn=978-0-86068-593-7}} *{{Cite book |title=The Crystal Owl| publisher=Methuen Paperback |year=1988 |isbn=978-0-413-18810-6}} *{{Cite book |title=Dreams, Like Heretics: New and Selected Poems |publisher=Serpent's Tail |year=1997 |isbn=978-1-85242-561-6}} *{{Cite book |title=August 6, 1945}}

===Novels=== *{{Cite book |title=The Grey Dancer |publisher=Collins |year=1981 |isbn=978-0-00184-267-0}} *{{Cite book |title=Every Move You Make |publisher=Virago |year=1984 |isbn=978-0-86068-585-2}} *{{Cite book |title=The Bad Box |publisher=Virago |year=1987 |isbn=978-0-86068-497-8}} *{{Cite book |title=Mer de Glace |publisher=Serpent's Tail |year=1992 |isbn=978-1-85242-267-7}} *{{Cite book |title=The Pillow Boy of the Lady Onogoro |publisher=Harcourt Brace |year=1996 |isbn=978-0-15-100186-6| url=https://archive.org/details/pillowboyofladyo00fell}} *{{Cite book |title=The Mistress of Lilliput |year=1999 |isbn=978-1-86230-048-4|last1=Fell |first1=Alison }} *{{Cite book |title=Tricks of the light |publisher=Doubleday |year=2003 |isbn=978-0-385-60508-3}} *{{Cite book |title=The Element -Inth in Greek|publisher=Sandstone Press Ltd |year=2012 |isbn=978-1-90-873702-1}}

===Anthology=== *{{Cite book| title=Licking the Bed Clean: Five Feminist Poets| publisher=Teeth imprints| year=1978| isbn=978-0-9506390-0-0| url=https://archive.org/details/lickingbedcleanf00fell}}

===Editor=== *{{Cite book |title=The Seven Deadly Sins |others=Illustrator Amanda Faulkner| publisher=Serpent's Tail|year=1989 |isbn=978-1-85242-140-3}} *{{Cite book |title=The Seven Cardinal Virtues |others=Illustrator Grizelda Holderness |publisher=Serpent's Tail |year=1990 |isbn=978-1-85242-169-4 |url=https://archive.org/details/sevencardinalvir00alis}} *{{Cite book |title=Serious Hysterics |publisher=Serpent's Tail |year=1992 |isbn=978-1-85242-222-6| url=https://archive.org/details/serioushysterics00fell}}

==References== {{reflist|30em}}

==External links== *{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4_4RA3Ngk0kC&dq=Alison+Fell&pg=PA106 |title=Kicking Daffodils: Twentieth-Century Women Poets |editor=Vicki Bertram |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |year=1997 |isbn=978-0-7486-0782-2}}

{{Authority control}}

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