Janet Violet Paisley (12 January 1948 – 9 November 2018) was a writer, poet and playwright from

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

, writing in Scots and English. Her work has been translated into German, Russian, Lithuanian, Slovak, Spanish, Hungarian, Ukrainian, Italian and Polish.

Career

Paisley was a member of the Working Party for a

Scottish National Theatre The National Theatre of Scotland, established in 2006, is the national theatre company of Scotland. The company has no theatre building of its own; instead it tours work to theatres, village halls, schools and site-specific locations, both at h ...

, the SAC

Scots Language Scots ( endonym: ''Scots''; gd, Albais, ) is an Anglic language variety in the West Germanic language family, spoken in Scotland and parts of Ulster in the north of Ireland (where the local dialect is known as Ulster Scots). Most commonly ...

Synergy, and the Cross Party Parliamentary Group for the

. She held three Creative Writing Fellowships, received two

Scottish Arts Council The Scottish Arts Council ( gd, Comhairle Ealain na h-Alba, sco, Scots Airts Cooncil) was a Scottish public body responsible for the funding, development and promotion of the arts in Scotland. The Council primarily distributed funding from the ...

Writer's

Bursaries A bursary is a monetary award made by any educational institution or funding authority to individuals or groups. It is usually awarded to enable a student to attend school, university or college when they might not be able to, otherwise. Some awa ...

and a Playwright's Bursary, edited New Writing Scotland and co-ordinated the first Scottish

PEN A pen is a common writing instrument that applies ink to a surface, usually paper, for writing or drawing. Early pens such as reed pens, quill pens, dip pens and ruling pens held a small amount of ink on a nib or in a small void or cavity whic ...

Women Writers Committee. Her first play ''Refuge'' won the

Peggy Ramsay Margaret Francesca Ramsay (27 May 1908 - 4 September 1991) was an Australian-born British theatrical agent.Christopher Stevens ''Born Brilliant: The Life Of Kenneth Williams'', London: John Murray, 2010, p.409 Early life Peggy Ramsay was bor ...

Award in 1996. She was awarded a

Creative Scotland Creative Scotland ( gd, Alba Chruthachail ; sco, Creative Scotlan) is the development body for the arts and creative industries in Scotland. Based in Edinburgh, it is an executive non-departmental public body of the Scottish Government. The o ...

Award to write ''Not for Glory'' (2000), a collection of interlinked short stories in Scots set in a small village in Central Scotland. ''Not for Glory'' was one of the ten Scottish finalists voted for by the public in the 2003

World Book Day World Book Day, also known as World Book and Copyright Day or International Day of the Book, is an annual event organized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to promote reading, publishing, and copyrig ...

'We are what we read' poll. The short film ''Long Haul'', written by Paisley, received a BAFTA nomination in 2001. Paisley was the mother of seven sons, including the actor

David Paisley David Paisley (born 2 February 1979) is a Scottish actor, domestic violence and LGBTQIA+ rights campaigner, known for roles as midwife Ben Saunders in '' Holby City'', Ryan Taylor in '' Tinsel Town'' and Rory Murdoch in ''River City''. Some of ...

. One son died in early childhood.

Death

Janet Paisley died on 9 November 2018, at the age of 70.

Posthumous honours

On 1 December 2018 Janet was posthumously awarded an MG Alba Trad Music Award for Services to the Scots Language, sponsored by Scots Radio. The award was subsequently renamed the Janet Paisley Services to Scots Award in her honour.

References

External links

Archive of her Official website

{{DEFAULTSORT:Paisley, Janet 1948 births 2018 deaths Scottish women poets Scottish women dramatists and playwrights 20th-century Scottish dramatists and playwrights 21st-century Scottish dramatists and playwrights 20th-century Scottish women writers 21st-century Scottish writers 21st-century Scottish women writers Scots-language poets 20th-century Scottish poets 21st-century Scottish poets Scots-language writers