Alice Barker
Alice’s Books
The Mermazing Adventures of Penelope Pond
Publication date: TBD
Genre: Middle-grade fantasy
Author Bio
When Alice Barker was 12 months old, she was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, a condition that meant she would never walk and would have to use a wheelchair for the rest of her life. She spent most of her younger years unsure of her place in the world, until she was fourteen and saw James Cameron’s Avatar for the first time. In it, a disabled man, Jake Sully, goes from being a nobody to a legendary warrior named toruk makto, uniting people and keeping hope alive. From that moment on, Alice knew that it was her destiny to become toruk makto in real life.
Alice went to Huddersfield New College to do Film Studies, Medieval History and English Language, then to Sheffield Hallam University to study Film and Screenwriting. She graduated with First Class Honours, as well as receiving the Dean’s Prize for ‘rising to challenges and demonstrating outstanding personal achievement’. After she graduated, Alice did some online volunteering for The Polynesian Voyaging Society in Hawaii, and for The N/a’an ku sê Foundation in Namibia, Africa. Here, she was a brand ambassador for four years, giving talks to English schoolchildren about life in Namibia and supporting a young native San woman called Anaki, who also had cerebral palsy. Her efforts have seen her receive messages of support from Oscar-winning director James Cameron, Star Wars actor Mark Hamill, children’s author Jacqueline Wilson and naturalist and national treasure Sir David Attenborough, as well as the late Elizabeth II. She has also been featured in local, national and international news, as well as winning several filmmaking and writing competitions.
Since 2017, Alice has self-published five books via Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing service: the science fiction stories Tales from Tomorrow (2017) and Paraplegion (2018), romantic comedy Sketching Scarlett (2018, with a second edition in 2020), the thrilling retelling of The Nutcracker ballet On the Stroke of Twelve (2020), and the non-fiction Pearls of Wisdom (2021).