Alecia was born and raised in Kingston, Jamaica. She started writing while at high school, after failing Math consistently. Her poems were published in local newspapers The Gleaner and The Star. After school, Alecia moved to the United States where she studied Spanish and art at Troy State University in Alabama, and journalism at Columbia University in New York.

She worked as a journalist for the New York Times Group, and briefly for CBS, before moving to Belgium, where her first job was as a radio deejay for FM Le Soir. She later worked with The Wall Street Journal Europe, InterPress Service and other organizations, before joining the Free University of Brussels (Vesalius College) to teach Communications. In 1998, Alecia moved to London and stayed there for two years before migrating to Asia. She and her family are currently based in Singapore but they return as often as possible to the Caribbean.

In 1992, her first collection of short stories, Satellite City, was published winning the regional Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book. Stories from Yard, her fourth book, is published by Peepal Tree Press in Leeds.

Her globetrotting is reflected in her stories, and even those set firmly in the Kingston Yard, elsewhere is always present in letters and visits from relatives or friends gone abroad, in the decision to be made - stay or go? But going is no easy solution, life remains hard for those going to North America and Europe although through resilience, optimism, humour, and friendship new possibilities open up in the 'diaspora dance'.

Alecia's two other publications, When the Rain Stopped in Natland and Doctor’s Orders, are novellas for young readers.