alisonboston.com

Born in England, raised and educated in Canada. 15 schools (three in my first year) for 12 years resulting in a high school diploma, followed by three universities for one B.A. (concentration in theater).

We emigrated to Canada when I was four months old, so I learned at an early age how to quickly adapt to new circumstances. My babysitter was Quebecoise so she spoke to me in French, while my family spoke to me in English, so I have two mother tongues, though my education was in English so it is my first and most grammatically correct language.

I gave my first performance when I was three. I was a kid in a candy store who wanted the candies from the highest shelf. It was a little play staged by my mother for the church. It gave me a blueprint for life. (Both the church and the role I played!) That was followed by a ballet performance at age five. I was a flower. That gave me my second blueprint for life.

Then we moved back to England and I was given a suitcase to put my things in. We moved four times that year, and a year later we moved back to Canada, and I was given the same suitcase to put my things in, though some of the things had changed. That’s how I learned that home is wherever my suitcase is.

When I went out into the world on my own, I put my most precious things in that suitcase, among them all my poems and stories, and wherever I went I took the suitcase with me.

I no longer have that suitcase. I don’t know what happened to it. But I still have the creativity and imagination that it carried. And home is still wherever my suitcase is.

As for performing? I followed my flower dance at age five, with performances for the neighborhood kids from my bedroom balcony; then when we lived in Nova Scotia I did more shows for the neighborhood kids - this time getting dressed up and using the old boat houses along the LaHave River in Nova Scotia as my theater….then there were talent shows and high school drama clubs, and high school radio shows, and community theater (the Mock Turtle in Alice in Wonderland), and university…and university plays (Hesther in Equus) and radio shows, and poetry readings…

Read more on the History page, in the Poetry section.

As for the visual art…on the sewing machine? I got my first sewing machine and started making my own clothes at age 12… Read more on the History page of the Visual Art section.