Janet Paisley

1948 –

Writer, poet and playwright

Janet Paisley writes for stage, television, radio and screen.

She was a member of the Working Party for a Scottish National Theatre, the SAC Scots Language Synergy, and is on the Cross Party Parliamentary Group for the Scots Language. She has held three Creative Writing Fellowships, received two Scottish Arts Council Writer's Bursaries and a Playwright's Bursary, edited New Writing Scotland and co-ordinated the first Scottish PEN Women Writers Committee.

A performer of her own work, she appeared at Glasgow's Mayfest in Bread & CircusesThe Killing of WomenStickBack to Basics and For Want of a Nail.  Her first poetry collection, Pegasus in Flight, was published in 1989. Her play Refuge, won the Peggy Ramsay Award in 1996. Other plays include Winding StringDeep Risingstraitjackets, the radio plays Curds and CreamDiary of a GothSilver Bullet, and co-written with Graham McKenzie, the stage play, Sooans Nicht, and the radio comedy play, Bill and Koo.

In 2000 she was awarded a Creative Scotland Award to write Not for Glory(2001), a collection of linked short stories in Scots, set in Glen Village near Falkirk, where she lives. This book was one of the ten Scottish finalists voted for by the public in the 2003 World Book Day 'We are what we read' poll.

In 2001, Janet Paisley's short film Long Haul won a Bafta nomination. She also writes poems, stories and radio drama for children. Her latest books are two novels: White Rose Rebel (2007), set during the Jacobite rebellion; and Warrior Daughter (2009), both being made into films. Her most recent play, The Lasses, O, was performed at Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2010 and is based on the life of the poet Burns.  

To make your own nomination download the nomination form here