Beginner’s Pluck: Author Alison Wells on childhood stories and her favourite writers

Alison Wells author of Random Acts of Optimism

From aged nine, Alison grew up in Co Kerry. A wild child, always roaming, she also loved books. “When my two sisters and I were young we made up endless stories and games, and had these long-running sagas.” Alison kept a diary and wrote letters to her friends in the holidays.

“And at 17 I won a short story competition. That was amazing.”

After university, she worked for two years in Kerry County Council in the motor tax office. “Then I took a career break to study psychology.” Afterwards she worked for the Dublin Corporation, and then for a technical training company as a technical writer, and later, after completing a course in personnel management, as the HR manager.

In 1999, when she was married and expecting her first child, she stopped work, and remained at home looking after her four children.

She started to write and has continued ever since. Along with her blog, she’s written short stories and completed several novels. She’s been shortlisted for the Hennessy Award, The Pushcart Prize, and BBC’s Opening Line, and has had flash fiction published in The Stinging Fly. Her novel, The Exhibit of Held Breaths, was a finalist in the Irish Writer’s Centre Novel Fair in 2020.

Who is Alison Wells?

Date/place of birth: 1970/ London.

Education: St John Bosco Secondary School, Caherciveen, Co Kerry; Dublin City University, Communication Studies; UCC, conversion
degree to psychology.

Home: Bray, Co Wicklow.

Family: Husband Graham; children Evan, 22, Ronan 21, Erika 19, Ethan 15.

The day job: Assistant librarian at Shankhill Library.

In another life: A dancer.”

Favourite writers: Jon McGregor; AS Byatt; John Steinbeck; Yoko Ogawa; Siri Hustvedt; Margaret Atwood.

Second book: “Hopefully the novel that made the Irish Writer’s Centre Novel Fair.”

Top tip: “Find your purpose and keep reminding yourself what that is. Keep celebrating the small successes you have.”

Website: alison-wells.com

Twitter: @alisonwells

The debut

Random Acts of Optimism; Wordsonthestreet, €16

These 15 diverse stories, from a friendship formed during lockdown, through a death, and a difficult diagnosis, to ghosts and dinosaurs, show a range of protagonists trying to cope through life’s travails in a spirit of optimism.

The verdict: Wells’s feel for language is simply sublime.