Bill Findlay (writer)

Bill Findlay (11 June 1947 – 15 May 2005) was a Scottish writer and theatre academic. As a translator, editor, critic and advocate, he made an important contribution to Scottish theatre.[1][2] He worked as a lecturer in the School of Drama at Edinburgh's Queen Margaret University[3] and was a founder editor and regular contributor to the Scottish and international literature, arts and affairs magazine, Cencrastus.[4][5]

Born in Culross in Fife, Findlay attended Dunfermline High School and left home in 1965 to work as a civil servant in London. He returned to Scotland in 1970 to attend Newbattle Abbey College, spending two years there before going on to Stirling University, where he graduated with a first class honours degree in English in 1976.[6] His career in writing began when he won the McCash prize for poetry.[7]

For the first issue of Cencrastus, in 1979, Findlay interviewed Margaret Atwood on the relationship of Canadian writers and writing to the 'Imperial Cultures' of America and Britain.[8]

  1. ^ Corbett, John (2011), Translated Drama in Scotland, in Brown, Ian (ed.) (2011), The Edinburgh Companion to Scottish Drama, Edinburgh University Press, pp. 100, 101 & 105, ISBN 978-0-7486-4108-6
  2. ^ Smith, Donald (2011), The Mid-Century Dramatists, in Brown, Ian (ed.) (2011), The Edinburgh Companion to Scottish Drama, Edinburgh University Press, p. 126, ISBN 978-0-7486-4108-6
  3. ^ Parker, Geoff (ed.) (1986), Cencrastus No. 23, June - August 1986, p. 61, ISSN 0264-0856
  4. ^ Gunn, Linda and McCleery, Alistair (2009), Wasps in a Jam Jar: Scottish literary magazines and political culture 1979-99, in A. McNair, & J. Ryder (eds.), Further from the Frontiers: Crosscurrents in Irish and Scottish Studies, Centre for Irish and Scottish Studies, University of Aberdeen
  5. ^ Cencrastus No. 1, Autumn 1979, p. 1, ISSN 0264-0856
  6. ^ Bill Findlay Translator, critic and champion of the Scots language, obituary in The Herald, Glasgow, 23 May 2005
  7. ^ Obituary: Bill Findlay, The List 522, 26 May - 9 June 2005, p. 94, ISSN 0959-1915
  8. ^ Findlay, Bill (1979), Interview with Margaret Atwood, in Cencrastus No. 1, Autumn 1979, pp. 2 - 6, ISSN 0264-0856