Occupation Novelist Name Ali Smith Nationality Scottish Role Writer | Period 1995–present Movies The Child | |
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Books How to Be Both, The Accidental, There But For The, Hotel World, Girl Meets Boy Similar People Nigel Williams, Alan Grant, Randolph T Hester, Marilyn Monroe | ||
Ewwc ali smith how should authors approach the task of writing a novel today
Ali Smith CBE FRSL (born 24 August 1962) is a Scottish author, playwright, academic and journalist. Sebastian Barry has described her as "Scotland's Nobel laureate-in-waiting".
Contents
- Ewwc ali smith how should authors approach the task of writing a novel today
- Book review how to be both by ali smith
- Early life and education
- Career
- Short story collections
- Fiction
- Non fiction
- Plays
- Other projects
- Personal life
- Awards and honours
- References

Book review how to be both by ali smith
Early life and education

Smith was born in Inverness on 24 August 1962 to Ann and Donald Smith. Her parents were working-class and she was raised in a council house in Inverness. From 1967 to 1974 she attended St. Joseph's RC Primary school, then went on to Inverness High School, leaving in 1980.

She studied a joint degree in English language and literature at the University of Aberdeen from 1980 to 1985, coming first in her class in 1982 and gaining a top first in Senior Honours English in 1984. She won the University's Bobby Aitken Memorial Prize for poetry in 1984.

From 1985 to 1990 she attended Newham College, Cambridge studying for a PhD in American and Irish modernism. During her time at Cambridge, she began writing plays and as a result did not complete her doctorate.
Smith moved to Edinburgh from Cambridge in 1990 and worked as a lecturer of Scottish, English and American literature at the University of Strathclyde. She left the University in 1992 because she was suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome. She returned to Cambridge to recuperate.
As a young woman, Smith held several part-time jobs including a waitress, lettuce-cleaner, tourist board assistant, receptionist at BBC Highland and advertising copywriter.
Career
While studying for her PhD at Cambridge Smith wrote several plays which were staged at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and Cambridge Footlights. After some time working in Scotland, she returned to Cambridge to concentrate on her writing, in particular, focussing on short stories and freelancing as the fiction reviewer for The Scotsman newspaper. In 1995 she published her first book, Free Love and Other Stories, a collection of 12 short stories which won the Saltire First Book of the Year award and Scottish Arts Council Book Award.
She writes articles for The Guardian, The Scotsman, New Statesman and the Times Literary Supplement.
In 2009, she donated the short story Last (previously published in the Manchester Review Online) to Oxfam's 'Ox-Tales' project, four collections of UK stories written by 38 authors. Her story was published in the 'Fire' collection.
Short story collections
Fiction
Non-fiction
Plays
Other projects
Personal life
Smith lives in Cambridge with her partner, the filmmaker Sarah Wood.
Awards and honours
In 2007 she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature
Smith was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2015 New Year Honours for services to literature.