biography

Aleksandra M. Rychlicka is an award-winning, Polish-born writer working primarily in English.

Her first English novel, "The Nocturnals", was published in 2021 by Hawkwood Books. A psychological study in alienation, memory and oblivion, the early manuscript was selected for WriteNow London Workshop 2018, run by Penguin Random House for new writers from under-represented communities. The book was later developed at the Villa Sarkia Residency in Finland and the Trelex Residency in Switzerland.

Rychlicka’s short story “The Vanishing of Amanda Jones”, exploring the questions of hybrid identity and cultural belonging, was shortlisted in the Evening Standard Stories Competition 2021, in association with Netflix.

Negotiations with one’s past and a clash of cultures are also central themes in Rychlicka’s debut Polish novel "Opowiadaj mnie zawsze od nowa" [Recount Me Always Anew]. The book was spotlighted by the Culture Trip during the London Book Fair in 2016.

Aside from fiction, Rychlicka writes for the screen. Her dystopian TV drama FISHPOND was longlisted for Curtis Brown HW Fisher Scholarship for TV Screenwriters 2021, Script Angel Inclusion Scholarship 2020 and a quarterfinalist in the TSL Screenplay Contest 2019.

In 2021, she wrote the screenplay for the award-winning Azeri director Gyulyara Meliki’s forthcoming feature debut, MEDINA. Together with Polish-American filmmaker Justine Raczkiewicz, she’s co-written the screenplay for Raczkiewicz’s forthcoming film, NOSTOS (semi-finalist in the Shore Feature Contest 2021; participant in Stowe Story Lab 2021). Together with the Slovak director Dasa Raimanova she’s co-written the screenplay for Raimanova’s documentary GYPSY GADJI (European Social Documentary 2019; DOC LAB Poland 2020). Rychlicka was also a script supervisor of the Israeli director Dekel Berenson’s acclaimed first short THE GIRLS WERE DOING NOTHING (2017).

Currently, she is co-developing a dystopian TV series for Evil Doghouse Studios.

Rychlicka is an alumna of the United World College of the Adriatic in Italy. In 2019 she received a PhD in comparative literature from University College London.