Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
Woodhouse Lane,
LS1 3HE
Dr Alison Taft
Course Director
Alison Taft is the author of The Disappeared and The Runaway which are published by HarperCollins under her pen name Ali Harper. She is Course Director for English and Creative Writing with a particular interest in crime fiction and the domestic thriller. She has three bildungsromans published under AJ Taft (published by Caffeine Nights: Kent)
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About
Alison Taft is the author of The Disappeared and The Runaway which are published by HarperCollins under her pen name Ali Harper. She is Course Director for English and Creative Writing with a particular interest in crime fiction and the domestic thriller. She has three bildungsromans published under AJ Taft (published by Caffeine Nights: Kent)
Alison Taft is the author of five published novels, including two crime novels, The Disappeared and The Runaway, under the pen name of Ali Harper. Her sixth novel is due for publication in 2026.
Course Director for English and Creative Writing degree programmes, Alison came to Higher Education later in life, having previously taught creative writing in numerous settings, including prisons, retreats, community centres, schools, and literature festivals across the country. Alison has also worked in film and TV production and brings this experience to bear on both Screenwriting and Adaptation modules, looking at how stories change as they cross from print to visual media platforms.
Alison is the School of Humanities and Social Sciences Employability Lead and is committed to ensuring that all degree courses have an employability focus which prepares students for life beyond graduation.
Academic positions
External Examiner
Teesside University, Middlesbrough, United Kingdom | 01 September 2023 - presentLink Tutor
London South Bank University, The British University of Egypt in Cairo, London, United Kingdom | 01 November 2021 - present
Research interests
Alison's first three novels (Our Father Who Art Out There...Somewhere, Shallow be Thy Grave, My Time Has Come (Caffeine Nights, Kent: 2011, 2013, 2015 respectively) centre around themes of belonging and the search for identity, particularly through an adopted person's lens.
Her PhD was an examination of voice, tone and sexuality within feminist noir narratives. Her crime novels, The Disappeared and The Runaway (HarperCollins, London: 2018 and 2019 respectively) explore, through a feminist noir perspective, the relationships we have with the people who are not physically present in our lives.
Her sixth novel, due to be published late 2026, continues her obession with identity - bringing together a probation officer who doesn't know her birth family and a young man, her client, who wishes he didn't know his.
Alison is also interested in the creative process and the therapeutic benefits to writing. She is currently involved in The Seasonality Project, research that aims to test the hypothesis that a cyclical approach to creativity improves both productivity and well-being.
Publications (9)
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How the #MeToo movement has shaped how women write crime fiction
The Invisible
16 November 2019
300 Killer Reads
A case where nothing is as it seems...Private investigators Lee and Jo, owners of No Stone Unturned detective agency in Leeds, are tasked with looking into the case. Who was the woman? Did she really kill herself?
The Disappeared
26 July 2018
352 Killer Reads
YOU'LL NEVER FIND ME... A twisty, compelling, characterful crime thriller from a major new talent NOT TO BE MISSED!
My Time Has Come
17 February 2015
192
When reluctant Lily travels to Thailand to seek Bert's missing wife, she has no idea what the strange new country has in store for her Bert the Perv has met the woman of his dreams and Lily's pleasantly surprised to discover she's not ...
Our Father, Who Art Out There...Somewhere!
September 2011
270 Caffeine Nights Pub
What would you do if your own father refused to meet you?
30 September 2023
Clues: a journal of detection41(2):89-90 McFarland & Company, Inc.
The author describes her writing workshop, designed to enable students to work with subtext through the construction of a traditional crime fiction narrative and to encourage participants to recognize and set these skills within a wider employability framework.
Shallow Be Thy Grave Lily Appleyard
September 2013
274 Caffeine Nights Pub
Half-sisters Lily and Fiona haven't had the easiest of relationships - hardly surprising when they discovered each other's existence only a year ago.
The Fires We Start
Creative Writing for Wellbeing: three Case Studies
03 October 2025
Writing in Education
DR ALISON TAFT, DR JAMES McGRATH and CAROLINE BURNLEY from Leeds Beckett University share their experiences of creative writing workshops delivered to those working in therapeutic practice, men under section in an NHS psychiatric in-patient unit, and women prisoners with a formal diagnosis of personality disorder (or traits consistent with).
Professional activities
A member of the Society of Authors, Alison tutors an annual, week-long summer writing retreat.
She is the External Examiner for the MA in Creative Writing for Therapeutic Practice at The University of Teesside and a Link Tutor between London South Bank University and The British University of Egypt in Cairo.
Activities (2)
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Emma Ayton Zigup Human Resources Northgate Centre, Lingfield Way Darlington DL1 4PZ
The Seasonality Project - rewilding creativity
Current teaching
Ali is Course Director for English and Creative Writing programmes at Leeds Beckett University. She is a Senior Lecturer and teaches Adaptation: Literary Afterlives, Writing Reflections (creative writing for well-being) at Level Four, Screenwriting at Level 5, and Career Cartographies and Crime Stories at Level 6. Both third-year modules are inter-disciplinary. Career Cartographies is the placement module for the School.
Alison is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
Teaching Activities (9)
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Screenwriting
19 September 2022
Adaptation: Literary Afterlives
30 January 2023
Career Cartographies
19 September 2022
Crime Stories
19 January 2026
Writing Reflections
18 September 2023
South Asian Women and Writing: Reimagining Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own
14 August 2025
Joint supervisor
The Autistic Mystic
01 October 2024
Lead supervisor
The Archive: Autofiction as an autistic support tool
01 December 2025
Creative Writing BA (Hons)
18 September 2023
