Alan Bissett is one of the most popular and richest Writer who was born on November 17, 1975 in Falkirk, Scotland. 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. In March 2012, he became a “Cultural Ambassador” for National Collective, a creative organisation which supports Scottish independence.
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 2 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 also performed spoken word sets at the Connect Music Festival in 2007 and 2008, and at Crossing Border Festival in 2007.
In 2009, The Shutdown[2], a short documentary Bissett wrote (and narrated) about the experience of growing up in the shadow of the Grangemouth Oil Refinery, with particular mention of his father’s injury in the refinery flare line incident of 13 March 1987 [3] premiered in competition at Edinburgh International Film Festival, IDFA and Silverdocs, was shortlisted for the Scottish Short Documentary Award and won both the Jury and Audience Awards for Scottish Short Film at the Jim Poole Scottish Short Film Awards[4]. The Shutdown was directed by Adam Stafford, and later picked up for distribution by Accidental Media.
