Aliya Whiteley

Aliya Whiteley is a British novelist, short story writer, and poet born in Barnstaple, North Devon, in 1974 and raised in nearby Ilfracombe, a landscape that recurs throughout her fiction. She studied theatre, film, and television at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, and later earned a master's degree in library and information management. Whiteley writes literary science fiction and weird fiction marked by strange biology and unsettling transformation, including the novella The Beauty, the novel Skein Island, and the eco-horror novel Greensmith. Her novel Skyward Inn, about the psychological fallout of an interstellar war, and the collection From the Neck Up and Other Stories extended her reputation for unsettling, ideas-driven short and long fiction. She continues to publish widely across novels, novellas, and short stories, and lives in West Sussex, England.