Adelle Stripe was born in 1976 and grew up in Tadcaster, North Yorkshire. She is a novelist, poet and freelance arts writer.
Her debut novel, Black Teeth and a Brilliant Smile (Fleet), was inspired by the life and work of playwright Andrea Dunbar. It received the Society of Authors’ K Blundell Award for Fiction and was shortlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize. The Observer described it in their books of the year list as “a beautiful period piece of 1980s Britain, as funny and sad as anything by Dunbar herself.” A stage adaptation of the novel by Freedom Studios and Lisa Holdsworth received widespread critical acclaim.
Adelle is the author of three poetry chapbooks including 3:AM Magazine’s Poetry Book of the Year, Dark Corners of the Land. She is a regular contributor to The Quietus, and her journalism has appeared in The Guardian, New Statesman and Caught by the River. Her collaborations with musicians and filmmakers include a commission for John Grant’s North Atlantic Flux at Hull 2017, and a spoken word appearance on Smagghe & Cross’s Cock of the North.
Recent publications include Common People: An Anthology of Working-Class Writers, and an essay in the forthcoming Excavate: The Wonderful and Frightening World of The Fall. A pamphlet for Rough Trade Books, Sweating Tears with Fat White Family, will be published in autumn.
Adelle works as a lecturer at York St John University. She lives in Calderdale.
