Location: United Kingdom
Member Since: April 02, 2013

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Allie Cresswell

Biography

Allie Cresswell was born in Stockport, UK and began writing fiction as soon as she could hold a pencil.
She did a BA in English Literature at Birmingham University and an MA at Queen Mary College, London.
She has been a print-buyer, a pub landlady, a book-keeper, run a B & B and a group of boutique holiday cottages. Nowadays Allie writes alongside teaching literature to lifelong learners.
She has two grown-up children, a grand-daughter, and a dog called Moppet, is married to Tim and lives in Cheshire.
She has three novels in print and ebook formats: Relative Strangers, Game Show and Lost Boys. Lost Boys is available as a single volume or in its four constituent parts. Her third novel, Tiger in a Cage, will be available in the summer of 2014.

Smashwords Interview

If you could compare yourself to other, better known writers, who would they be?
I aspire to write literary fiction, with equal emphasis on both those aspects of the genre, so if you tend to read writers who give equal weight to the story they are telling and to the words they choose to tell it, chances are you'll like my books too. Naming names is tricky (how dare I aspire to such august company?) but Ian McEwan, Salley Vickers and Patrick Gale are writers I admire and aspire to emulate. In terms of subject matter, I love the everyday, every-person aspects of Anne Tyler's books. I'd like to think that (with the exception, perhaps, of Game Show) all my stories are the kinds of things which could take place in your neighbourhood to your friends and acquaintances.
What is the greatest joy of writing for you?
The greatest joy is when I sit down in the morning, still wearing my dressing gown and with my first cup of tea still warm in the cup, just to look over what I wrote yesterday, and look up to find it is half past four in the afternoon and the tea has gone cold, with no sense of how time has passed in between but 1800 good words on screen.
Read more of this interview.

Where to find Allie Cresswell online

Website: http://www.allie-cresswell.com
Twitter: @alliescribbler
Facebook: Facebook profile
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=217708649&trk=hb_tab_pro_top

Where to buy in print

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_15?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=allie+cresswell&sprefix=allie+cresswell%2Caps%2C203

Books

This member has not published any books.

Smashwords book reviews by Allie Cresswell

  • Of Words and Water - 2013 on July 30, 2013

    Getting something for nothing can either be a lovely surprise or something we take for granted. Fresh clean water falls into the latter category for most of us. Even during the heat wave we in the UK are enjoying at the moment we have refreshing showers a couple of times a day and water the garden in the cool of the evening without giving it a second thought. Sadly that isn’t the case for many millions of people, a plight which this anthology seeks to relieve. The book is free to download. All the writers ask is a donation to WaterAid, a charity which helps people get that basic necessity of life: clean water. Their website and Facebook page make it easy to make an on-line donation but won’t rail-road you into it; you can give as much or as little as you like. The book itself falls squarely into the former category. An eclectic mix of short stories, poetry, song and memoir, there is something here for everyone except any kind of difficult to swallow on-message sentimentality or guilt-trip evangelism. The stories are all entertaining in their different ways, with water as their loosely – sometimes very loosely - connecting theme. What is more, as the contributors are mainly Indie authors working hard to get their voices heard, the anthology provides a wonderful showcase for emerging talent, one of which may well turn out to be your next favourite. Personally I’ll be looking out for more from Patrick de Moss, whose ‘Old Waves, New’ is a hauntingly rendered account of the awkward and past-laden reunion of a father and son in a remote cabin in Nova Scotia which had me absolutely gripped. I found Ali Isaac’s autobiographical account of discovering her unborn baby had a rare disorder heart-breakingly honest and poignant but without a whiff of self-pity. In contrast, Mike Duron’s delightful and playful ‘Fwish’ was full of fun and grammatical naughtiness. Life the author, I could have coped with only one instalment of Boo, but it did envy him that diamond-yielding frog! Considering nobody, from the editor to the illustrator, receives a penny in recompense for their contribution to this publication, it is beautifully produced and painstakingly edited, another lovely surprise.