About
Alison has worked with some of the most exciting entertainment brands around the world on handfuls of well-known stories that have hit book, stage, screen and theme park.
As Founder and Creative Director of storycentral, Alison is a writer, strategist and helps create stories and experiences worldwide.
However Alison is also passionate about telling her own amazing stories, with characters that she knows and loves, female heroines and good men who sometimes, just sometimes, find themselves in awkward, difficult or plain cringe-worthy dilemmas.
Alison is a member of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences of Television (Emmys), is a BAFTA Guru, a judge for Cannes Young Lions and a member of the Themed Entertainment Association.
More importantly, she is also a proud single Mum of 2 amazing young men, has had a handful of Long Distance (and Close Proximity) relationships, is a master of singing both parts of well-known duets and an expert at wanting the right thing at the wrong time…
Published Books
Three of a Kind
A story spun between Lisbon, London and Dublin (Poolbeg)
“Norrington keeps it real, makes it fun while making you think about your own life, loves and losses”. - Irish Independent
Helly (Helen) Donovan, 34, is the centrepin of life for the Donovan sisters. Charley, the eldest, is an advertising copywriter living in Dublin with the beginnings of a shady relationship with drink and a dark secret. Fiona, the youngest, is stuck in Portugal with her young daughter Adriana, threatened by legal action from her cheating ex, Luis, who forbids her to return home or get a job.
Helly is the middle sister, with the ‘perfect’ life – or at least it seems that way to everyone else. With her two gorgeous sons, her hunky husband Dan, a successful vintage clothing business in Portobello Road and a lovely home in London, her sisters lean on her way too much. Life takes a disturbing turn when she opens the door to a handsome stranger from her past as a response to an ad that Dan has placed for a guitarist to join his jazz band and suddenly there’s no telling what she might risk.
Just as things can’t get any more complicated, Helly’s secret ex with a suitcase full of unfinished business walks back in her life, just as her sisters land on her London doorstep, expecting Helly’s ‘midas touch’ to rub off on them. The sisters all struggle to cope with their busy lives, in the belief that only one of them, the quirky Helly, ‘has it all’. But she knows all too well, the perceptions of ‘having it all’ are completely different to the reality. All is not what it seems. Things come to a head when the sisters reinforce their bonds and begin to reassess their futures. When all three find themselves living together for the first time in years, the sparks really start to fly.
Look Before You Leap
A tour of Ireland like never before. (Poolbeg)
“Norrington brings depth to the chicklit arena with art forms and her multi-location stories. More please”. - U Magazine
Tara McKenna is a planner and a designer. Tara loves to make things happen, turn things around, make things look amazing and has a rather brilliant creative eye. Unfortunately, this extends to a desire to plan the perfect wedding and Tara is soon in love with the idea of her own wedding, with little regard for the prospect of marriage. Fuelled by an impending leap year opportunity of 29th February, Tara decides to propose to her short-term boyfriend, Simon who, to her friends horror, accepted!
An obsession with the idea of her wedding blinded Tara from checking out one small detail - her future husband, Simon. Stuck in post-marital doldrums, an affair after only 6 weeks of hot-footing it down the aisle had injected some life into her disappointing marriage – until Simon found out and left her. Dumped and guilt-ridden, Tara is saved by her best friends Niamh Donnelly and Anna…
On the other side of Dublin, Declan O’Mahoney is stressed. Coordinating an interior-design team for his latest home makeover TV reality show is a real headache and ruthless, pill-popping, celebrity interior designer, Ciara O’Rourke is doing her diva act. When top photographer Niamh Donnelly introduces her problem-solving, creative friend Tara, Declan’s TV home makeover show begins to take shape. There’s an instant attraction between Declan and Tara, but she’s determined not to ‘ruin another man’s life’ again, still berating herself for jumping the broomstick without a safety net.
Class Act
A jaunt from South London to Valencia, and back! (Poolbeg)
“Stunning debut novel. Norrington is a name to watch! A Picasso painting with words”. - Ireland on Sunday
Geraldine Cumbers, days from her thirtieth birthday, contemplates the milestone with depression and magnified significance. A downtrodden, recently abandoned mother of two toddlers she goes through the motions of her newly single life from her South London home. Her best friend, Sinead Kelly is by contrast a successful high-flyer in the world of Finance and currently on assignment in Buñol, Valencia. The receipt of a 30th birthday card from Sinead looks set to re-write Geri’s future, it reading, “Enjoy your birthday with Passion, Attitude and Alcohol”.
Both women are envious of each other’s lifestyle, but neither confesses the mundane truth of their existence. Geri perceives Sinead as a dynamic success, not seeing the lonely insecurity that Sinead conceals along with her intense home-sickness. Conversely Sinead wrongly believes that Geri continues to be settled in domestic bliss, secure with the perfect husband and fulfilled by motherhood. In the light of Sinead’s card Geri decides to correct her domestic dilemma, with a search for a “new man and a new me”., consequently signing up for three evening classes - Spanish, Internet and Piano and promising herself the penance of the gym once a week.
Geri spends weeks contemplating the “Passion, Attitude and Alcohol” command, feeding Sinead a ton of ‘little-white lies’ get larger and uglier, both faking their happiness. As Geri gains confidence Sinead reaches rock bottom and, without realising it, the women have swapped places emotionally.