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Ali Bryan

Canadian Novelist, Award-winning Author, Wrestler in Calgary, Alberta

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ABOUT

the author

Ali Bryan

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.

 

Work With Ali

Workshops and Events & Appearances

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.

Excerpts & Reviews

words for thought…

I met him at a club that used to be a bank. It had columns out front and a safe below the dance floor. The vodka was dollar store priced and warm. They’d run out of ice. Love and rejection had melted it.

Alexandra with a K

Ali Bryan
2020-08-20T12:07:47-06:00

Alexandra with a K

I met him at a club that used to be a bank. It had columns out front and a safe below the dance floor. The vodka was dollar store priced and warm. They’d run out of ice. Love and rejection had melted it.
A typical October day in Halifax: bare and wet, grey and swollen, the storm drains leaf-blocked and foaming, the pigeons distended and mumbling.

Roost

Ali Bryan
2020-08-20T12:08:29-06:00

Roost

A typical October day in Halifax: bare and wet, grey and swollen, the storm drains leaf-blocked and foaming, the pigeons distended and mumbling.
[Ali Bryan] is an amusing writer who has mastered the voice of the self-deprecating female, amusing without being annoying.

Sarah Murdoch, Toronto Star

Ali Bryan
2020-08-20T12:05:57-06:00

Sarah Murdoch, Toronto Star

[Ali Bryan] is an amusing writer who has mastered the voice of the self-deprecating female, amusing without being annoying.
I don't know whether to start singing “Kumbaya” or stick a fork in my eye.

Roost

Ali Bryan
2020-08-20T12:04:24-06:00

Roost

I don't know whether to start singing “Kumbaya” or stick a fork in my eye.
Bryan’s dialogue and character interaction are so spot on, and the rare occasion where she does take the chance and delves beneath the super funny surface of asshole-dom, she is dazzling.

Lee Kvern, The Winnipeg Review

Ali Bryan
2020-08-20T12:05:27-06:00

Lee Kvern, The Winnipeg Review

Bryan’s dialogue and character interaction are so spot on, and the rare occasion where she does take the chance and delves beneath the super funny surface of asshole-dom, she is dazzling.
He wipes his enormous food-slicked face vigorously with a napkin, and I’ve just a had a one-night stand with a manatee.

Roost

Ali Bryan
2020-08-20T12:08:11-06:00

Roost

He wipes his enormous food-slicked face vigorously with a napkin, and I’ve just a had a one-night stand with a manatee.
We stumble over dirt paths. Nothing is in a straight line and we periodically find ourselves trapped between crypts, moss on our shoulders, philosophers at our feet. Our mother lets her hair down under the shade of a Japanese pagoda. Paris alive and pink in her cheeks.

La Part Des Anges

Ali Bryan
2020-08-20T12:09:12-06:00

La Part Des Anges

We stumble over dirt paths. Nothing is in a straight line and we periodically find ourselves trapped between crypts, moss on our shoulders, philosophers at our feet. Our mother lets her hair down under the shade of a Japanese pagoda. Paris alive and pink in her cheeks.
We mock my mother’s CD collection, which is comprised mostly of hardcore Christian music. I re-name one of the albums from “Change My Heart Oh God,” to “Change My Habits Oh God.” Together, my sister and I also re-write the track list to include songs such as 75 Mugs, That Might Be Worth Something Someday, Salad Spinners For Every Season and the cult classic, Mints After the Meal.

Mints After the Meal

Ali Bryan
2020-08-20T12:07:01-06:00

Mints After the Meal

We mock my mother’s CD collection, which is comprised mostly of hardcore Christian music. I re-name one of the albums from “Change My Heart Oh God,” to “Change My Habits Oh God.” Together, my sister and I also re-write the track list to include songs such as 75 Mugs, That Might Be Worth Something Someday, Salad Spinners For Every Season and the cult classic, Mints After the Meal.
It’s a challenge for any writer to depict the voices and private interactions of children without coming off as twee or sentimental. This story does so expertly, using a strange encounter to tenderly explore depict the idiosyncratic reactions and observations of a group of kids. As they discuss the Big Man who’s passed out on their playground, their interactions reveal the class system they live in, their limited expectations, and their kindness. The ending is perfect.

Jury, 2020 Howard O’Hagan Award for Short Story

Ali Bryan
2020-08-20T12:06:22-06:00

Jury, 2020 Howard O’Hagan Award for Short Story

It’s a challenge for any writer to depict the voices and private interactions of children without coming off as twee or sentimental. This story does so expertly, using a strange encounter to tenderly explore depict the idiosyncratic reactions and observations of a group of kids. As they discuss the Big Man who’s passed out on their playground, their interactions reveal the class system they live in, their limited expectations, and their kindness. The ending is perfect.
Paul searched his pocket for loose change and went to the canteen for a bag of chips. They were an unfamiliar brand with a waving potato on the bag. Narmeen would get a kick out of it. The vegetables in Eritrea never smiled or waved. Canada made everything a cartoon. Young countries did that.

Item 22

Ali Bryan
2020-08-20T12:10:01-06:00

Item 22

Paul searched his pocket for loose change and went to the canteen for a bag of chips. They were an unfamiliar brand with a waving potato on the bag. Narmeen would get a kick out of it. The vegetables in Eritrea never smiled or waved. Canada made everything a cartoon. Young countries did that.
That secret place beneath the bows of a heavy tree where the ground was soft and love and make-believe could be made.

The Figgs

Ali Bryan
2020-08-20T12:10:47-06:00

The Figgs

That secret place beneath the bows of a heavy tree where the ground was soft and love and make-believe could be made.
"Bryan’s first novel for young adults, from feminist imprint Dottir, hits all the right apocalyptic notes. A great pick for forward-thinking feminist teens."

ALA Booklist

Ali Bryan
2021-02-01T11:28:34-07:00

ALA Booklist

"Bryan’s first novel for young adults, from feminist imprint Dottir, hits all the right apocalyptic notes. A great pick for forward-thinking feminist teens."
I stand on the Hill’s summit, alone, like the spire atop a watchtower. Up here, the wind is violent. It rolls off the ocean seven hundred and fifty-three steps below and then charges up stinging the cheeks and whipping the braids of girls as it climbs. If you’re afraid of heights, don’t look down. Don’t look up either. You look up too quick, the sun will blind your eyes and freckle your face while the clouds will yank you over the edge. And as much as you want them to sooth your wounds and cradle you like a baby, they’ll let you drop. They’ll even kiss you on the way down.

The Hill

Ali Bryan
2020-08-20T12:09:38-06:00

The Hill

I stand on the Hill’s summit, alone, like the spire atop a watchtower. Up here, the wind is violent. It rolls off the ocean seven hundred and fifty-three steps below and then charges up stinging the cheeks and whipping the braids of girls as it climbs. If you’re afraid of heights, don’t look down. Don’t look up either. You look up too quick, the sun will blind your eyes and freckle your face while the clouds will yank you over the edge. And as much as you want them to sooth your wounds and cradle you like a baby, they’ll let you drop. They’ll even kiss you on the way down.
…she has a standup’s knack for candid detail and dialogue, leading you to expect the expected, only to deliver the timely left hook that shatters it.

Carol Bruneau, The Chronicle Herald

Ali Bryan
2020-08-20T12:04:56-06:00

Carol Bruneau, The Chronicle Herald

…she has a standup’s knack for candid detail and dialogue, leading you to expect the expected, only to deliver the timely left hook that shatters it.
I picture my mom being carried in a giant baby bjorn.

Roost

Ali Bryan
2020-08-20T12:07:24-06:00

Roost

I picture my mom being carried in a giant baby bjorn.
She did not feel like the girl with the one blue hand. She felt like the girl with the single black heart. She felt adopted.

The Figgs

Ali Bryan
2020-08-20T12:08:50-06:00

The Figgs

She did not feel like the girl with the one blue hand. She felt like the girl with the single black heart. She felt adopted.
The first time he felt like love was a real thing because it was there in the room, shaking the chandelier crystals, making his hair frizz and her hips sway and the patrons sip and the bartender weep. The tired woke up, riches rained upon the poor and the huddled masses breathed—no they sang—free. It was the closet Gil ever felt to God. The closest he ever felt to Cheryl. The last time for both.

Item 22

Ali Bryan
2020-08-20T12:10:22-06:00

Item 22

The first time he felt like love was a real thing because it was there in the room, shaking the chandelier crystals, making his hair frizz and her hips sway and the patrons sip and the bartender weep. The tired woke up, riches rained upon the poor and the huddled masses breathed—no they sang—free. It was the closet Gil ever felt to God. The closest he ever felt to Cheryl. The last time for both.
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Ali Bryan