Aliya Whiteley

Born in Devon in 1974, Aliya took a degree in Theatre, Film and Television Studies at Aberystwyth University in the early 1990s and has been writing since then. She’s lived all over the UK and in Germany, and is currently in Sussex with her husband, daughter and dog. She writes in many genres. Her two comic novels, Light Reading and Three Things About Me, were published by Macmillan, and her speculative fiction has appeared in various publications, such as Strange Horizons, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and the Elastic Press slipstream anthology, Subtle Edens (co-written with Neil Ayres). Her short stories are violent, terrifying, tender, and funny. They have received much critical praise, from The Boston Globe to Tangent, and have garnered accolades such as The Drabblecast People’s Choice Award, runner-up in the Guardian’s Short Short Story competition, and runner-up in the McSweeney’s 13 Writing Prompts competition. In 2012 she was the runner up in the British Fantasy Society short story competition.