Alan Bissett

'Alan Bissett (born 1975) is an author from Hallglen, an area of Falkirk in Scotland. After the publication of his first two novels, "Boyracers" and "The Incredible Adam Spark", he became known for his different take on Scots dialect writing, evolving a style specific to Falkirk, suffused with popular culture references and Socialist politics. Bissett used to lecture in Creative Writing at Bretton Hall College, now part of the University of Leeds, and tutored the Creative Writing MLitt at the University of Glasgow alongside Janice Galloway and Tom Leonard. He became a full-time writer in December 2007.

Background

Bissett was born in 1975. He attended Falkirk High School and then the University of Stirling, where he gained a First Class Honours degree in English Literature and Education. After a short spell as a secondary school teacher at Elgin Academy, Bissett was awarded a Masters degree in English from the University of Stirling, during which time he edited a collection of Scottish Gothic stories, Damage Land (2001), and wrote his first novel, Boyracers. His stories were either short- or longlisted for the national Macallan Short-Story Competition four times between 1999 and 2002. His third novel, Death of a Ladies' Man is due out in July 2009, and he has recently moved into playwriting, working with Scottish theatres The Arches and Traverse Theatre.

Alan Bissett is a member of the Glasgow G7 group of writers (Alan Bissett, Nick Brookes, Rodge Glass, Laura Marney, Alison Miller, Zoë Strachan and Louise Welsh).

Bibliography

Novels

• Boyracers (2001)
• The Incredible Adam Spark (2005)
• Death of a Ladies' Man (July 2009)

Anthologies

• Damage Land: New Scottish Gothic Fiction (2001) (editor)
• In the Event of Fire: New Writing Scotland 27 (July 2009) (co-editor with Liz Niven)

Music

Bissett also collaborated with musician Malcolm Middleton for the song "The Rebel On His Own Tonight", writing the lyrics and performing a spoken word section, for the Ballads of the Book project, bringing together Scottish writers with Scottish musicians, spearheaded by Roddy Woomble and Edwin Morgan.

Inspired by this experience, Bissett approached bands Zoey Van Goey and Y'all is Fantasy Island suggesting they perform together. In May 2007, all three performed together in a short tour of Central Scotland. The tour, called Super Puny Humans played in Edinburgh on the second of May, Glasgow on the third, Stirling on the fourth and finally Falkirk on the fifth. Since then, Bissett has regularly performed his writing at concerts in support slots for various bands, including the first-ever comeback gig of The Vaselines, and the "Music Like A Vitamin" night at ABC Glasgow, run by Rod Jones from Idlewild in support of Mental Health Week. He has also performed at the Connect Music Festival for the past two years.

External links

• Official site
• Template:Contemporary writers (British Council)
• Creative Writing at Glasgow University
• Alan's blog at The Guardian
• Super Puny Humans site
• Short story: This Snow Won't Lie for Long at Scottish Arts Council website, Dec 2007
• Short story: So Many Crows, Mad Hatters Review, Issue 7, February 2007