Janet Paisley is an award winning poet, author, playwright, non-fiction and scriptwriter, writing in Scots and English. A prolific and popular writer, first published in 1979, her work has been translated into German, Russian, Lithuanian, Slovak, Spanish, Hungarian, Ukranian and Italian and is widely anthologised. Read Biography
Awards include BAFTA and RTS nominations for Long Haul, a 2000 Creative Scotland Award to write Not for Glory; 1999 Canongate Prize; 1996 Peggy Ramsay Memorial award for Refuge; National, Scottish National, Swanage Arts and MacDiarmid Trophy poetry prizes; Sutton, Scotwrite and BBC prose prizes. In 1996 Alien Crop was shortlisted as Scottish Book of the Year and Sooans Nicht was Critics Play of the Year. In 2003 Not for Glory was in the World Book Day Top Ten Scottish Books and featured on the nation’s favourite books of all time list of 2005. Her critically-acclaimed historical novel, White Rose Rebel, is now a Penguin paperback. Full bibliography in Writing
New Book - Warrior Daughter
Warrior Daughter - a marvellous marriage of imagination and scholarship: Lancashire Evening Post
Amazon - 2,000 years ago on the Isle of Skye, a warrior is born
“Daughter of an Iron Age warrior queen, Skaaha is wild, headstrong and revered. But she is also a child, and when a chariot race leaves her mother dead and the queen’s menacing rival Mara in her place, Skaaha’s charmed life lies in ruins.”
Illuminated by the great Celtic fire festivals, Warrior Daughter is inspired by the historical Scathach, a legendary warrior queen of the first century AD, and forerunner of Boudicca
Warrior Daughter cuts close to the bone of Celtic History - Sunday Times
Reviews: a fantastic historical novel - Medieval Bookworm - a vivid tale - Nayu's Reading Corner - unique and inspiring story that goes far beyond the usual bounds of an historical novel. Truly memorable! - Lancashire Post
New Drama - The Lasses, O
...a delightfully subtle act of subversion... Mark Brown - Sunday Herald
For Homecoming Year and Robert Burns’ 250th anniversary, the award-winning playwright tells the stories of five women who knew him, each dramatically illuminated by one of his songs, and reveals their influence on his life story.
Abridged production toured by Rowan Tree Theatre Company: March-April 2009. Director: John Bett. Actor: Gerda Stevenson. Musicians: Rachel Newton, Lilias Kinsman-Blake, Seylan Baxter.
White Rose Rebel
“A stunning debut novel.” WHITE ROSE REBEL
This is history at its most magnificent - New Books Magazine
“White Rose Rebel is incredibly readable, pacy, lusty, rousing and richly imagined.” Based on the life of the legendary Colonel Anne, this impeccably researched novel tells the story of a couple torn apart and set against each other on opposite sides during the Jacobite Rising of 1745. “Realistic, deeply moving and gloriously passionate.”
Buy from Penguin or as an audio book read by Carol Bonnyman from Oakhill Publishing.
International Publications
- LA ROSA DE ESCOCIA Espasa Calpe 2008 - La Rosa de Escosia by Janet Paisley
Un pueblo desgarrado, una época convulsa y un amor que lo superará todo.
La rosa de Escocia fue la bella y aguerrida Anne Farquharson, quien tomó las riendas de su clan contra su marido, al cual se enfrentó para adoptar la causa de la rosa blanca jacobita, la de los partidarios del príncipe Carlos, el Pretendiente, a quien consideraban su legítimo señor. Ambos vivirán una intensa pasión mientras la lucha política los obliga a enfrentarse una y otra vez, hasta llegar a un final realmente inesperado.
- DIE REBELLIN DER ROSE Rowohlt 2007 - Die Rebellin der Rose by Janet Paisley
Die junge Ehe zwischen der eigensinnigen Anne und dem stattlichen Clanführer Aeneas gerät zwischen die Fronten des schottischen Unabhängigkeitskrieges. Anne stürzt sich an der Seite ihres früheren Liebhabers in den blutigen Kampf für ein freies Schottland – bis sie eines Tages auf dem Schlachtfeld ihrem Mann gegenübersteht …
- WICKED! in Ukraine
Janet Paisley’s hilariously naughty comic novella Wicked! is now available
in translation in Ukraine. “This book is wicked!” CPRACC.
Read about the UK edition from Sandstone or buy as a Clipper Audio book
- VSESVIT - no. 3-4, Ukraine 2007
Переселення
Поклали ноги в ґрунт, углиб землі
людей немає.
Кістки жінок прадавніх... чути хрускіт,
сухі й крихкі, під нашими ногами...
Ukraine’s literary journal Vsesvit, issue 3-4, features Janet Paisley’s acclaimed collection Alien Crop with twenty poems translated into Ukranian by literary editor and critic Dmytro Drozdovskyi.
Writing for Children
Janet Paisley’s stories, poems and plays for children are published alongside other writers in various anthologies suitable for a range of age groups.
- Scottish Plays for Schools published by Hodder Gibson in association with ASLS includes English and Scots versions of Silver Bullet - a comic play about growing up for reading or perfomance with secondary S1 to S6.
- The Thing that Mattered Most - Scottish poems for children by Scottish poets.
- Gaberlunzie Joes's PURE GHOSTERS - short stories for weans S1 to S5.
- My Mum's a Punk - stories and poems by Scottish writers for 10-14yr olds.
- The Tartan Rainbow - stories in English for children age 9-12yrs
- A Hantle o Verse - poems in Scots for children.
- Anither Hantle o Verse - more poems in Scots.
- Shouting it Out - stories for teenagers from contemporary Scotland.
- Goldfish Suppers - poems for children and families.
- Other anthologies include The Kist schools resource, Twinkle, Twinkle Chocolate Bar rhymes for the very young, Count to Five and Say I'm Alive video and books pack, and Bright Ideas poetry activities from Scholastic.
