Ali Bryan is an award-winning novelist and creative nonfiction writer who explores the what-ifs, the wtfs and the wait-a-minutes of every day. She crafts stories about the downtrodden and disenfranchised, the brokenhearted, and the vulnerable. About lovers and losers, mothers and mutineers, prisoners with daddy issues, and sad auctioneers and single dads and feminist kids. She writes about herself. She writes you.
Her first novel Roost, won the Georges Bugnet Award for Fiction and was the official selection of One Book Nova Scotia. Her second novel, The Figgs, was a finalist for the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour and optioned for TV by Sony Pictures. She twice long-listed for the CBC Canada Writes Creative Nonfiction prize, twice shortlisted for the Alberta Literary Awards Jon Whyte Memorial Essay Award and won the 2020 Howard O’Hagan Award for Short Story. She is a Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Arts Awards Emerging Artist recipient. Her debut YA novel, The Hill, was released in March and was longlisted for the 2021 Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize.
She lives in foothills of the Canadian Rockies, where she has a wrestling room in her garage and regularly gets choked out by her family.
Ali teaches a variety of in-person and online micro-workshops and multi-week classes in both fiction and creative nonfiction.
Previous workshops include Plotting for Pantsers, Intuits and the Totally Lost, Manuscript Bootcamp, All the Feels: Crafting Contest-Worthy Short Creative Nonfiction and Go Public: A Personal Essay Workshop Class.
Check out upcoming in-person and virtual events, readings, book launches, residencies and festival appearances.
Sarah Murdoch, Toronto Star
Sarah Murdoch, Toronto Star
Roost
Roost
La Part Des Anges
La Part Des Anges
Carol Bruneau, The Chronicle Herald
Carol Bruneau, The Chronicle Herald
Lee Kvern, The Winnipeg Review
Lee Kvern, The Winnipeg Review
Item 22
Item 22
Jury, 2020 Howard O’Hagan Award for Short Story
Jury, 2020 Howard O’Hagan Award for Short Story
Roost
Roost
The Figgs
The Figgs
Roost
Roost
Alexandra with a K
Alexandra with a K
The Figgs
The Figgs
Roost
Roost
The Hill
The Hill
Mints After the Meal
Mints After the Meal
Item 22
Item 22
ALA Booklist
ALA Booklist