© Jack Donaghy
Alan Bissett is a novelist, playwright and performer from Scotland. His first novel, Boyracers (2001) follows the formative years of four Falkirk teenagers and his second novel, The Incredible Adam Spark (2005) told the story of Scotland's first superhero. Death of a Ladies' Man (2009) and Pack Men (2011), both of which are about young men and their various misadventures were both shortlisted for the Scottish Arts Council Fiction of the Year award. The short film Alan wrote and narrated, The Shutdown (2009), about an industrial accident involving Alan's father, won numerous international film festival awards. Alan has twice been shortlisted for Best New Play at the Critics’ Awards for Theatre in Scotland, his most well-known play being his ‘one-woman show’ The Moira Monologues (2009), the sequel to which, Moire Moira Monologues (2017) won a Fringe First award at the Edinburgh Fringe. Alan was Glenfiddich Scottish Writer of the Year in 2012. He has taught creative writing at both Leeds University and Glasgow University, but has worked as a full-time writer since 2007. In 2016 Alan was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Stirling University for his Outstanding Contribution to Scottish Culture, and in 2020 he presented a documentary for BBC Scotland called Inside the Mind of Robert Burns.
