She majored in English at the University of Saskatchewan, and worked summers at hospitals and nursing homes for the chronically ill.[1] As a writer she is known for the collections "A Sleep Full of Dreams and The Garden of Eloise Loon".
Alford's first short story collection, A Sleep Full of Dreams, looks at the lives of residents and workers in Pine Mountain Lodge.
David Carpenter writes that Alford "usurps the quaint moderation that has been accorded to Saskatchewan by those who don't understand its hazardous otherness.
The occupation of disaster, the story of loss, pain, and indignity, recites a quintessentially Saskatchewan moment of hesitation inlaid with the exaggerated tales the province incites."
[8] She also edited Gloria Sawai's A Song for Nettie Johnson, which won the Governor General's Award for Fiction,[9] along with short story collections by Bonnie Burnard, Fred Stenson and many others.