Dr Alison MacLeod

Courses taught:

• Creative Writing (Postgraduate)
• Creative Writing (Undergraduate)

Alison MacLeod is an award-winning novelist, short story writer, essayist and occasional features writer. Her fiction has been widely published, translated and broadcast. She is also a senior academic with longstanding experience across many roles.

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Background

Alison MacLeod is a writer and part-time Senior Lecturer at ARU. Her novel Tenderness was a New York Times ‘Best Book’ of the year and a ‘Best Paperback’ of the year for The Sunday Times. Her novel Unexploded was nominated for the Booker Prize and adapted for BBC Radio 4. Her collection All the Beloved Ghosts was shortlisted for Canada’s Governor General’s Award and shortlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize. Alison has won both the Society of Author’s prize for ‘Best Short Story’ and the British Library’s Writer’s Award. She is a Fellow of the Royal Literary Fund.

Research interests

• The modern and contemporary novel – literary fiction
• Contemporary short fiction
• Modernist short fiction, especially Anton Chekhov, D. H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, Katherine Mansfield, Flannery O'Connor, Graham Greene
• Literary-historical fiction
• Prose fiction by women
• The postmodern novel
• Historiographic metafiction
• Speculative fiction
• Fiction of the Uncanny
• Magical realism and fiction
• Literature of 'the fantastic' – e.g. Angela Carter
• Fiction and the reinvention of myth – Ovid, in particular
• Fiction and science

Areas of research supervision

• (pending) Literary fiction novel and thesis re. literature and subjectivities of the climate crisis.
• Literary-historical novel and thesis re. representation and landscape in literature of the American West. Completion: PhD in Creative Writing.
• Literary-historical novel and thesis re. Southern Gothic literature and ‘fugitive subjectivities’. Completion: PhD in Creative Writing.
• Short fiction collection and thesis re. liminality, metamorphic experience and short fiction form. Completion: PhD in Creative Writing.
• Short fiction collection and thesis re. fairytale form, transgression and reinvention. Completion: PhD in Creative Writing.
• Short fiction collection and thesis re. the folkloric imagination and contemporary short fiction (deferral).
• Drama script and thesis re. creative writing applications for pedagogical practice. Completion: PhD in Creative Writing.

PhD examination:

• Literary fiction novel and thesis re. embodiment, prose-fiction rhythm and form. University of East Anglia. Award: PhD in Creative Writing.
• Literary fiction novel and thesis re. theory and narrative representation of the non-human. University of Chichester. Award: PhD in Creative Writing.
• Short fiction collection and thesis re. ecocriticism, natural history and contemporary science. University of St Andrew’s. Award: PhD in Creative Writing.
• Literary fiction novel and thesis re. narrative representation of schizophrenic experience. University of Glamorgan. Award: PhD in Creative Writing.
• Literary fiction novel and thesis re. colonial, post-colonial and Black-British identities. University of Lancaster. Award: PhD in Creative Writing.
• Literary-historical novel and thesis re. narrative representation of anthropological discourse, colonialism and shamanic experience. University of Lancaster. Award: PhD in Creative Writing.

Teaching

Alison currently teaches on the modules:

• Introduction to Imaginative Writing (prose fiction) – Level 4 (BA)
• Novel Writing: long-form prose – Level 6 (BA)
• Workshop: the Novel – Level 7 (MA)

Qualifications

• University of Lancaster, PhD in Creative Writing
• University of Lancaster, M.A. in Creative Writing
• Mount Saint Vincent University, Canada, BA, English Literature with French Literature

Memberships, editorial boards

• Fellow of the Royal Literary Fund
• Writer-Fellow of the Eccles Centre of the British Library
• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
• Literary Awards Judge for: e.g. the International Frank O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, the International Manchester Fiction Prize, the London Magazine Short Fiction Award, the Mslexia Fiction Prize for Women, the Charleston Award for Short Fiction Lifetime Achievement Award, etc.
• Writer-in-Residence appointments: e.g. Eccles Center of British Library, Banff Centre of Canada, Ditchling Museum of Art & Craft.
• Commissioning Editor (2018-20), The Stories We Tell series for the Arvon Foundation
• Associate Editor (2009-18), Short Fiction in Theory & Practice
• Founder & Director (2009-18) of ‘Thresholds International Short Story Platform & Archive’
• Peer reviewer, Arts and Humanities Research Council (2014)
• Trustee (2009-14), the Asham (Virginia Woolf) Literary Endowment Trust for Short Story Writers
• Panel member (2010-11) for the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education for Creative Writing subject area: co-authorship of subject benchmarking document
• Literary Adviser, The London Magazine
• Member, Society of Authors

Research grants, consultancy, knowledge exchange

Multiple funding awards in support of writing & research: from e.g. the British Library, Arts Council England, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Authors Foundation and the Society of Authors.

Selected recent publications

MacLeod, A., 2025. Short Story (broadcast pending Aug.), prod. Allard, E. BBC Radio 4.

MacLeod, A., 2023. ‘Literary Frenemies’: Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield’, ed. Clements, K. Collected. London: Royal Literary Fund publications.

MacLeod, A., 2021. ‘The Chatterley Affair: Was Rebecca West a Double Agent in the Battle for Free Speech?’, London: The Telegraph.

MacLeod, A., 2021. Tenderness. London and New York: Bloomsbury; Toronto: Penguin Canada. Romanian translation.

MacLeod, A., 2019. ‘Great Pucklands’, ed. Davey, K. UK: English Heritage Publishing.

MacLeod, A., 2018. ‘The Gleaning’, prod. Allard, E. BBC Radio 4.

MacLeod, A., 2018. ‘We are Methodists’, Best British Short Stories 2018, ed. Royle, N. UK: Salt Publishing.

MacLeod, A., 2017. ‘Portrait: Eric Gill Dreaming’, prod. Osborne, J. Sweet Talk Productions for BBC Radio 4.

MacLeod, A., 2017. All the Beloved Ghosts. London and New York: Bloomsbury; Toronto: Penguin Canada. Japanese translation.

MacLeod, A., 2016. ‘Imagining Chekhov – suite of three short stories by Alison MacLeod’, prod. Osborne, J. Sweet Talk Productions for BBC Radio 4.

MacLeod, A., 2014. ‘In Praise of Radical Fish’, prod. Osborne, J. Sweet Talk Productions for BBC Radio 4.

MacLeod, A. 2013. ‘Hearing Voices: on the Writing of The Changeling’, Writing Your First Novel, ed. Stevens, K. UK: Palgrave.

MacLeod, A., 2012. ‘There Are Precious Things’, prod. Allard, E. BBC Radio 3.

MacLeod, A., 2012. ‘Solo, A Capella, prod. Osborne, J. Sweet Talk Productions for BBC Radio 4.

MacLeod, A., 2011. ‘The Heart of Denis Noble’, Litmus: Short Stories from Modern Science, ed. Page R. Manchester: Comma Press; reprinted 2011 BBC National Short Story Award Collection, ed. Page, R. Manchester: Comma Press; 2012 broadcast version, prod. Allard, E. (BBC Radio 4); reprinted Best British Short Stories 2012, ed. Royle, N. UK: Salt Publishing; reprinted Sunday Times digital edition, ed. Galvin, C.; reprinted 2013, The Story: Loves, Loss & the Lives of Women: 100 Great Short Stories, ed. Hislop, V.

MacLeod, A., 2013. ‘On the Life and Afterlife of the Short Story’, Writers' & Artists' Companions: Writing Short Stories, eds. Newland, C. and Hershman, T. London: Bloomsbury.

MacLeod, A., 2013. ‘Introduction to the short stories of Katherine Mansfield’, Morphologies, ed. Page, R. Manchester: Comma Press.

MacLeod, A., 2013. Unexploded. London: Penguin UK; Toronto: Penguin Canada.

MacLeod, A., 2013. ‘No Excess Baggage: the Art of the Short Story’, London: Sunday Times Magazine.

MacLeod, A., 2009. ‘Writing and Risk-Taking’, Short Circuit: A Guide to the Art of the Short Story; ed. Gebbie, V. UK: Salt Publishing.

MacLeod, A., 2008. ‘Family Motel’, The New Uncanny: Tales of Unease; eds. Page, R. and Eyre, S. Manchester: Comma Press.

MacLeod, A., 2007. Fifteen Modern Tales of Attraction. London: Penguin UK.

MacLeod, A., 1996. The Changeling. London: Macmillan-Picador; New York: St. Martin’s Press. German translation.

Recent presentations and conferences

2028 Reading from Tenderness & plenary lecture: International Lawrence Conference, ‘Lawrence and the Mediterranean’, the Paris Nanterre D. H. Lawrence Annual Conference Series, Université Paris Nanterre at Aix-en-Provence.

2024 Plenary lecture: ‘Ways of Knowing: What is the Imagination?’, Pari Center, Italy.

2024 Lecture series on ‘The Art of Fiction’ for RIBA Writing Academy, Kiev, Ukraine.

2022 Keynote: ‘Tenderness, Chatterley, the Dynamics of Creation and Literary Censorship’, Writers’ Guild of Alberta, Canada.

2021 Book launch event and interview, chair Erica Wagner, for Tenderness, British Library.

2019 Public Lecture: ‘Research and Creation’, and Interview of Visiting Professor Alison MacLeod, University of Chichester.

2018 Plenary lecture: ‘Time and Literary Creation’ for multi-disciplinary conference on ‘Time’, Pari Center, Italy.

2018 Presentation: ‘Artistic Research in the Academy’, University of Linnaeus, Sweden.

2017 Conference Keynote Lecture and Reading from All the Beloved Ghosts, University of Leuven, Belgium.

2017 Reading and interview for Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts, Newcastle University.

2017 Lecture: ‘Writing Canada’, Summer Scholars Series, Eccles Centre, British Library.

2016 Reading and Q&A for PGR CW programme, University of Lund, Sweden.

2015 Keynote speaker for Conference on Creative Writing in the Academy, University of Linnaeus, Sweden.

2014 Reading for the 13th International Conference of the Short Story in English, University of Vienna.

Media experience

2025 BBC Radio 4, ‘Three Faces of D. H. Lawrence’ series, contributor to three episodes.

2023 British Institute of Florence, Italy: public interview re. ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover in Italy, and D. H. Lawrence, “Bomb-thrower”’.

2023 Adelaide Literature Festival, Writers’ Week, Australia: interview re. Tenderness (by chair Felicity Plunkett) plus panel contribution on new appraisals of D. H. Lawrence (panellists: Alison MacLeod, Amit Chaudhuri, Lara Feigel and Geoff Dyer).

2023 BBC Radio 4: contributor to two episodes of ‘Opening Lines’ series: on Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Lawrence’s radical authorship, and the censor.

2022 Bendigo Writers’ Festival interview, Australia: Tenderness, Lady Chatterley and D. H. Lawrence.

2022 Bath Festival interview: Tenderness and D. H. Lawrence’s Last ‘bright book of life’.

2022 International Charleston Festival event (UK): ‘Tenderness, the making of Lady Chatterley, and D. H. Lawrence’s 1915 Sussex inspirations.’

2021 Miami Book Festival event (USA): ‘Tenderness & Lady Chatterley: a reassessment of J. Edgar Hoover, Literary Censorship v Freedom of the Imagination’.

2021 The Mechanics’ Institute event, San Francisco (USA): ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover & Grove Press: Censorship and the Contest for Liberal Democracy at the time of the Kennedy-Nixon Election’.

2021 International Charleston Literature Festival event (USA): ‘Tenderness, Lady Chatterley and Scandal: The Power of the Literary Imagination in the 20th Century’.

2021 BBC Radio 4, ‘Open Book’ interview, ‘Literary Modernism in the 1920s: D. H. Lawrence, Life-force and a new prose of consciousness & embodiment’.

2021 Times’ Radio interview for Mariella Frostrup: on Tenderness.

2021 Cheltenham Literature Festival event: ‘Tenderness, Chatterley and Reading D. H. Lawrence post-Kate Millett’.

2021 International Ottawa Literature Festival interview (Canada): ‘Six Years with D. H. Lawrence: on Researching and Writing Tenderness’.

2021 ABC (Australian Broadcasting) national ‘Book Show’, interview ‘Tenderness, the unknown Story behind the Story of Lady Chatterley’s Lover’.

2021 London Library: ‘Tenderness interview’ – interviewer Prof. Lara Feigel.

2021 Arvon: reading and event (UK) – guest speaker: ‘Tenderness, Literary Creation and the Novel, or “the bright book of life”’.

2021 ‘The Story Behind the Story’ leading book podcast (Australia) – interview: on the writing of Tenderness.

2020 The Sunday Times: writer-contributor to ‘The world’s best writers reveal their favourite short stories...’

2019 BBC Radio 4, ‘The World Tonight’: contributor re. the power of short fiction.

2018: 2018 Edge Hill Prize Ceremony, London: Reading.

2018 Small Wonder International Short Fiction Festival/The Charleston Festival Address ‘In honour of A. S. Byatt’ on the occasion of her Charleston Lifetime Achievement Award for Short Fiction.

2017 The International Festival of Authors for the Governor General’s Award for Fiction nominees’ public event, Toronto: Reading and interview with CBC journalist and broadcaster Carole Off.

2017 The International Small Wonder Short Story Festival, Charleston Festival: Reading event: from All the Beloved Ghosts.

2017 The Cambridge Literary Festival: Reading from All the Beloved Ghosts.

2017 BBC Radio 3, ‘Free Thinking’: ‘Canada at 150: Identity’, panel member.

2017 Sussex Life Magazine, Interview re. All the Beloved Ghosts.

2017 NPR (National Public Radio, USA), ‘Weekend Edition’: New York: Interview (broadcast) re. All the Beloved Ghosts.

2017 CBC (Canada’s national broadcaster), Toronto: Interview re. All the Beloved Ghosts.

2017 BBC Radio 4, ‘Open Book’, Interview (broadcast) re book. All the Beloved Ghosts.

2017 Waterstone’s Bookshop, London and Brighton: public signings and readings from All the Beloved Ghosts.

2017 British Library Writers’ Festival: guest speaker and interview re. All the Beloved Ghosts.

2017 Gluck Arts Studio, Sussex: public reading and in conversation event re. All the Beloved Ghosts.

2017 Hans Feibusch Mural Restoration Unveiling, American Express sponsored event, Brighton, St Wilfred’s former church: Guest of Honour Address: ‘On the Art of Hans Feibusch’ and reading from Unexploded.

2017 Raffles Hotel, Singapore by invitation: Writer in Residence and associated media.

2017 Dulwich Picture Gallery for opening of Vanessa Bell exhibition, London: Reading from All the Beloved Ghosts.

2016 Shorelines Festival, UK: Reading from Unexploded.

2015 The Brighton Dome main stage: Reading from Unexploded for multi-author/performer event in support of LIBERTY human rights organisation.

2014 BBC Radio 4’s ‘Open Book’: ‘Virginia Woolf in Fiction’.

2014 International Hong Kong Literature Festival, Readings, press interviews re. Unexploded, and panel events.

2014 International Jaipur Literature Festival, Readings from Booker-nominated Unexploded, press interviews, panel events.

Media & Academic Review sample:

Novel Tenderness (Bloomsbury UK/US and Penguin CA, 2021-22)

• ‘In her novel Tenderness, Alison MacLeod traces Lady Chatterley’s sources in the thickets of Lawrence’s own biography, then follows its tortured progress towards the light through the indecency trial. In doing so, she offers up two visions of what a novelist can be – the novelist as alchemist, turning the straw of his life into gold and not counting the cost, and the novelist as historian of ideas. Her focus shifts elegantly, imagining Lawrence as he nurtures ideas in sequences rich with poetic memory, then recounting the trial with journalistic rigour […] These shifts seem effortless because MacLeod’s subject sits above them all, uniting threads – the story of how a story made its way into the world. It’s a brilliant insight to build a novel on [… A] propulsive, addictive, joyous read… Victories for freedom should be sung from the rooftops. That is what MacLeod has done.’ — Guardian, Barney Norris.
• ‘At the heart of Tenderness, Alison MacLeod’s ambitious fourth novel, are the creation of DH Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover and its later life as a work supposedly too obscene to be freely available to readers. Weaving together fact and fiction with impressive skill, MacLeod marshals a number of very different but interlinked narratives […] Tenderness is […]as life-affirming as Lawrence’s own fiction always aimed to be.’ — Nick Rennison, The Sunday Times.
• A ‘magnificent nonlinear spin on Lady Chatterley’s Lover and the censorship of literature during D.H. Lawrence’s life and beyond […] MacLeod covers an astonishingly broad range of incidents, eras, and themes in vivid prose, and depicts Lawrence’s supporters and opponents with equal insight and sympathy. [T]riumphant […] this places MacLeod among the best of contemporary novelists.’ — Publishers Weekly, starred review
• ‘Powerful, moving, brilliant — I’ve never read anything quite like Tenderness, and I doubt I ever will again. This is more than a book about a book; this is a book about living — about really living, at the most dangerous and beautiful edges of the human experience. I stand in awe of Alison MacLeod. She is a novelist operating at the peak of her powers — no less a genius than the master whose work she has so lovingly and shrewdly explored here. She moves across time and space like a wizard, wrapping up fact within fiction so magically that you can’t find a seam anywhere. Tenderness is an utterly captivating read, and I came away from it with this astonished thought: There’s nothing this writer can’t do.’ –- Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love.
• ‘[…] always elegant; a defence of complicated thinking and embodied life’ — Prof. Lara Feigel, Guardian.
• ‘Tenderness is a passionate, epic joy. It’s a paean to artistic imagination and freedom, and also to the messy complexity of humanity. The characters leap from the page with astonishing life that is all the more impressive given their historical fame. MacLeod’s prose is a masterclass–gripping, lyrical, witty, razor-sharp and filled with, yes, tenderness. I will never forget it.’ — Madeline Miller, author of Circe.
• ‘Tenderness is daring and innovative […] The structure is unexpected and the story is epic and bold, and to quote from the book, it is also big-spirited and alive.’ — Sarah L’Estrange, Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).
• ‘As sublimely crafted as a novel could ever be. I’m in awe… Tenderness is an intricate, mesmerising tapestry of love and regret, prudery and desire, loneliness and togetherness, loyalty and betrayal, and the enigmas and conundrums involved in the art of committing these experiences to the page.’ – Isabella Tree, author of Wilding.
• ‘Some women authors […] have rescued D. H. Lawrence’s reputation. They include Doris Lessing and Alison MacLeod.’ — The Economist.
• ‘Alison MacLeod’s big, bold, brave and surprising novel, Tenderness, is an important and distinctive addition to the rich catalogue of Lawrence biofictions [… I]t is telling how each new generation has found new perspectives and resources from their attention to Lawrence and his work[… MacLeod is] writing in no small part to recover Lawrence from what [she] see[s] as the neglect, misunderstanding and condescension of contemporary readers and critics[…] MacLeod’s novel explores and celebrates the quite unique place of Lady Chatterley’s Lover (which Lawrence considered naming Tenderness) in modern cultural history, whilst at the same time confronting some of the central challenges that readers of Lawrence have faced[…] It is this last element which deserves emphasis: this is a work about reading… Tenderness is a significant contribution to our thinking about Lawrence, as much as a persuasive and very readable novel […] Notwithstanding its grand, complex and monumental aspects, Tenderness is also a work of great generosity and, yes, tenderness, in its sensitive and often moving interweaving of multiple stories of intimacy and love…’ — Dr Sean Matthews, Journal of D. H. Lawrence Studies.
• ‘Such slicing and dicing and speculating shouldn’t work. And yet, against the odds, it does.’ – Alida Becker, The New York Times; Tenderness, a New York Times Book of 2021.
• ‘…a compelling read. In keen and elegant prose, Macleod dramatises a significant moment in Britain’s cultural and social history, when the country stood on the cusp of embracing wider personal freedoms. Her novel vindicates reading as a transcendental act.’ — Tomiwa Owolade, The Literary Review.
• ‘[C]ompelling […] a passionate exploration of fiction’s ability to restore a heartbeat to events otherwise consigned to the bloodlessness of historical time’ —Gregory Day, Sydney Morning Herald.
• ‘Tenderness is an extraordinary novel […] It’s a very contemporary book about trust, love, secrecy, surveillance, disinformation, and power. The characters live and breathe on the page, and passages from Lady Chatterley are skillfully interwoven into their thoughts in such a way as to illumine both this novel, and Lawrence’s original. I’m now re-reading Lady Chatterley myself, with a much greater sense of connection and admiration for what Lawrence was attempting, in his final and most passionate novel.’ – Jane Rogers, Writers Review.
• ‘Its vivid prose flows, taking you back to the linguistic brilliance of the Modernists […]’. — Nawaid Anjum, Hindustan Times; Tenderness, a Hindustan Times Book of 2021.
• ‘Alison MacLeod has bored deep into significant cultural fault-lines of the twentieth century: DH Lawrence’s grappling with Edwardian England’s psychological timidity; America’s moment of political optimism with the Kennedys; the trial of Lady Chatterley’s Lover. She has disentangled connections – roots – between them and their participants, and emerged with a great sweeping symphony of a novel.’ — Tim Pears, author of The West Country Trilogy.
• ‘Tenderness is a triumph and it will conquer your heart. Stunning, illuminating, but also, profoundly moving.’ – Elif Shafak, author of Rivers in the Sky.
• ‘Tenderness was the working title of D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover and is now the title of a new novel by Alison MacLeod […]— a triumph and a treat for all Lawrentians. As used by MacLeod, the word tenderness means (as it did for George Eliot), “’sympathy,” or imaginatively “entering into the mind, soul, spirit or body of another.” That definition knits MacLeod’s novel so dazzlingly that there were many moments when I was deeply moved, many when I felt illuminated and informed, and some where I felt envious of MacLeod’s narrative skill. Is it a perfect novel? In many ways, yes, and certainly one of the best I have read this year’. -- Marianna Torgovnick, The D.H. Lawrence Review.