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A L Kennedy


(Alison Louise Kennedy)
Scotland (b.1965)

Novelist and short-story writer A.L. Kennedy has worked for the arts and special needs charity Project Ability since 1989, first as Writer in Residence (1989-95), then as editor of Outside Lines magazine, and has been a member of the Management Committee since 1998. She was editor of New Writing Scotland (1993-5) and was Writer in Residence at Copenhagen University in 1995. She reviews for The Scotsman, the Glasgow Herald and the Daily Telegraph, is a contributor to the Guardian, and has been a judge for both the Booker Prize for Fiction (1996) and The Guardian First Book Award (2001). She was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 2000.

Her first book, Night Geometry and the Garscadden Trains (1990), a bleak collection of short stories set in Scotland, won several awards including the Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, a Scottish Arts Council Book Award and the Saltire Society Scottish First Book of the Year Award. In 1993 she was named as one of Granta magazine's 20 'Best of Young British Novelists 2'.

She has written numerous short story collections, So I am Glad (1995) winning the Encore Award.

She wrote the screenplay to the BFI/Channel 4 film Stella Does Tricks, released in 1998, and edited New Writing 9 (2000) with John Fowles, published in the UK by Vintage in association with the British Council. Her book of short stories, Indelible Acts, was published in 2002.
 

Genres: Literary Fiction, Children's Fiction, Science Fiction, Fantasy, General Fiction, Mystery
 
New and upcoming books
Novels
   Looking for the Possible Dance (1993)
   So I Am Glad (1995)
   Original Bliss (1997)
   Everything You Need (1999)
   Paradise (2004)
   Day (2007)
   The Blue Book (2011)
   Serious Sweet (2016)
   Great Expectations (2024)
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Collections
   Night Geometry and the Garscadden Trains (1991)
   Now That You're Back (1994)
   Tea and Biscuits (1996)
   Indelible Acts (2002)
   Ox-Tales:Air (2009) (with others)
   Crimespotting (2009) (with others)
   What Becomes (2009)
   All the Rage (2014)
   The Great War (2015) (with others)
   24 Stories of Hope (2018) (with others)
   We Are Attempting to Survive Our Time (2020)
   Same Same but Different (2021) (with others)
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Novellas and Short Stories
   The Little Snake (2018)
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Anthologies edited
   New Writing 9 (2000) (with John Fowles)
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Series contributed to
Elsewhere
   1. Here (2012) (with others)
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Non fiction show
 
A L Kennedy recommends
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Quinn (2023)
Em Strang
"Quinn is a fascinating fever dream of a book. Guilt, redemption, memory and fantasy are shattered and rebuilt into a strange kaleidoscope, a compelling personal narrative from a deeply broken man. What a novelistic debut from Em Strang."
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The Swallowed Man (2020)
Edward Carey
"A beautiful and dark meditation on fatherhood, mercy, redemption and the alchemy of isolation. Strange, moving and musical, it's a delight."
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Missionaries (2020)
Phil Klay
"Missionaries is an urgent, detailed, compassionate and quietly furious novel about America and her Forever Wars. Intensely readable, exciting, funny and heartbreaking - it will change you."

More recommendations 


Anthologies containing stories by A L Kennedy
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Head Land (2016)
10 Years of the Edge Hill Short Story Prize
edited by
Rodge Glass
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Life (2013)
Great Short Stories for Women by Women
edited by
Victoria Hislop
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The Mammoth Book of Best British Mysteries 8 (2011)
(The Mammoth Book of ...)
edited by
Maxim Jakubowski

More anthologies 


Awards
Costa Book Awards Best Novel winner (2007) : Day
Saltire Literary Awards Best Book winner (2007) : Day
Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction Best Book nominee (2012) : The Blue Book
Saltire Literary Awards Best Novel nominee (2014) : All the Rage
Booker Prize Best Novel nominee (2016) : Serious Sweet


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