About Alice
Alice K. Boatwright is an award-winning author writing across multiple genres. She is most well-known to readers for her popular Ellie Kent mysteries, which debuted with Under an English Heaven, winner of the 2016 Mystery and Mayhem Grand Prize. The series continues with What Child Is This? and In the Life Ever After, and she is currently working on the fourth book.
Alice is also the author of literary fiction, including the historical and timely Shadows of Vietnam (formerly titled Collateral Damage); the story triptych, Sea, Sky, Islands; and dozens of published short stories. In 2022, she launched her own imprint, Firefly Ink Books, with Mrs. Potts Finds Thanksgiving, a story for children 8 to 108 inspired by Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.
Alice studied writing as an undergraduate at Syracuse University and went on to earn an MFA in writing fiction at Columbia. Her literary heroes, heroines, and influences range from J.D. Salinger, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Richard Brautigan, Raymond Carver, and William Gass to the Brontës, Willa Cather, Virginia Woolf, Elizabeth Strout, and Maggie O’Farrell. Throw in a pot, stir, and add Alice.
Alice’s mysteries set in England draw on her experiences as an “ex-pat” living in India (where, at 11, she developed an English accent) and England (where she lived in a tiny village), as well as childhood summers spent at an English country dance and folk music camp in Massachusetts. She sees her books as “traditional” mysteries inspired by the Golden Age writers, such as Dorothy L. Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, and Josephine Tey, but with contemporary influences, such as P.D. James. She also loves M.C. Beaton, because she always makes her laugh.
Over the years, Alice has taught writing in settings from university campuses in the US to a bed-and-breakfast in Kathmandu and a private school in Paris. She has also been a speaker at numerous writing and mystery-focused conferences. She never gets tired of talking about books, writing, and publishing, so welcomes the opportunity to meet with book clubs and other groups.
After “day jobs” writing about public health, education, and the arts that took her around the world, Alice now lives in the Pacific Northwest, where she is very active in the writing community.
Bibliography
Shadows of Vietnam (Firefly Ink Books, 2025)
In the Life Ever After: Ellie Kent mystery, book 3 (Firefly Ink Books, 2024)
Mrs. Potts Finds Thanksgiving (Firefly Ink Books, 2022)
Sea, Sky, Islands: Three Stories (Noontime Books, 2019)
What Child Is This? Ellie Kent mystery, book 2 (Cozy Cat Press, 2017) (2nd edition, Firefly Ink Books, 2023)
Under an English Heaven: Ellie Kent mystery, book 1 (Cozy Cat Press, 2014) (2nd edition, Firefly Ink Books, 2023)
Collateral Damage (Standing Stone Books, 2012; out of print, 2023)
For links to published short stories, please visit http://alicekboatwright.com/short-stories/
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