Alison Irvine
Author
Agent
Assistant
Melissa Tombere
MTombere@UnitedAgents.co.ukBiography
Alison Irvine’s novel THIS ROAD IS RED (Luath 2011) was based on interviews with residents of Glasgow’s Red Road Flats and was shortlisted for the Saltire First Book of the Year Award. Her collaboration with photographer Chris Leslie and artist Mitch Miller, Nothing is Lost (Freight 2015), won the Scottish Design Awards Grand Prix. This was a Glasgow Life commission to record the impact of the 2014 Commonwealth Games on residents of Glasgow’s East End. She collaborates regularly with Leslie and Miller as Recollective and their practice involves documenting the stories and memories of people in relation to the places in which they live and work. Most recently they have been Artists in Residence for Falkirk Townscape Heritage Initiative. Her work in Recollective has in turn fed into her independent fiction projects.
Alison is a graduate of Glasgow University’s Creative Writing MLitt (distinction). She was awarded a Scottish Arts Council New Writer’s Award in 2007 and has been Scottish Book Trust Reader in Residence for East Dunbartonshire Library Service. She regularly works with libraries, schools, and community groups teaching creative writing.
Her second novel, CAT STEP, was published by Dead Ink in 2021.
Publications
Fiction
One mistake can unravel everything… She only left her daughter in the car for a minute; just a quick minute whilst she ran into the shop. She barely thought twice about making the decision, but it soon began to consume her every thought. And not just her thoughts, but those of every neighbour, police officer and social security worker in a fifteen mile radius. But this is her child. Surely she knows best? After she’d made the move to a small town in Scotland, the rolling hills and blustery beaches seemed to be the perfect backdrop for her and her four year-old daughter, Emily, to start again. It wasn’t always easy just the two of them, but Liz was sure that she could manage this time. And now this? Sometimes, one mistake is all it takes to unravel everything.
Shortlisted for Scottish First Book of the Year at the Saltire Society Awards 2011
It is 1964. Red Road is rising out of the fields. To the families who move in, it is a dream and a shining future.
It is 2010. The Red Road Flats are scheduled for demolition. Imhabited only by intrepid asylum seekers and a few stubborn locals, the once vibrant scheme is now tired and out of time.
Between those dates are the people who filled the flats with their laughter, life and drama. Their stories are linked by the buildings; the sway and buffet of the tower blocks in the wind, the creaky lifts, the views and the vertigo.
This Road is Red is a compelling and subtle novel of Glasgow.
