Alan Spence

Alan Spence

Born in Glasgow in 1947, Alan Spence is an award-winning poet, novelist and playwright. His first poetry collection, Plop!, was published in 1970 and has since written several more collections. He is considered to be the leading Scottish haiku writer, with collections including Seasons of the Heart and Clear Light. Haiku and another Japanese poetry form, tanka, feature in his most recent novel, The Pure Land, which is set in 19th century Japan and tells the true story of Scotsman Thomas Blake Glover.

He has won a Scottish Arts Council Book award three times, was the SAC Scottish Writer of the Year in 1995, and in 2006 won the Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland (Writing) Award in 2006. Alan Spence now lives in Edinburgh with his wife, where they run the Sri Chinmoy Meditation Centre. He is Chair of Creative Writing at the University of Aberdeen, and has been Artistic Director of the Aberdeen Word Festival since 1999.

  • Cover scan of Clear Light
    £7.99
    Clear Light: Haiku - Paperback
    'Clear Light' contains 150 haiku bursting with Alan Spence's characteristic verve and wit. Mythic and mesmerising, awestruck and hilarious, these poems shed clear light on the delights, hardships, breakthroughs and frustrations of the world of the momentary.
  • Cover scan of Glasgow Zen
    £7.99
    Glasgow Zen - Paperback
    Alan Spence's collection of haikus and other short poetic forms focuses on the theme of Glasgow, its people, landscape and culture. It includes some previously published poems but is mostly made up of contemporary writing.
  • Cover scan of The Magic Flute
    £6.99
    The Magic Flute - Paperback
    The Magic Flute is a funny, sharply observant novel, combining gritty realism with great humour & considerable poetry. Spence won the McVitie's Scottish Writer of the Year Prize in 1996. Previous novels include Way to Go & Its Colours They Are Fine.
  • Cover scan of The Pure Land
    £7.99
    The Pure Land - Paperback
    'The Pure Land' relives in fiction the arc of Thomas Glover's true-life rise and fall, and forges a hundred-year saga that culminates in the annihilation of Nagasaki in 1945. It spans the feudal and the atomic ages, east and west, global history and private passion.
  • Cover scan of Seasons Of The Heart
    £6.99
    Seasons Of The Heart: Haiku - Paperback
    With warmth and insight and clear-eyed observation, this volume invokes the turning of the seasons in a cycle of timeless moments that resonate in the mind and the heart, using the Japanese poetic form haiku.
  • Cover scan of Stone Garden
    £5.99
    Stone Garden - Paperback
    Stone Garden is a collection of 12 stories set around the world, but always with the Scottish connection. Spence author of Its Colours They Are Fine and The Magic Flute, has written stories which reflect his spiritual and emotional quests.
  • Cover scan of Way To Go
    £6.99
    Way To Go - Paperback
    From the author of The Magic Flute, this story lifts the lid on the Glasgow undertaking industry and continues the author's exploration of spirituality and emotional salvation. A young man returns from the East to take over the family business.

Bibliography

Last modified Wednesday 13 January 2010
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