Alan Spence is an award-winning Scottish poet and playwright, novelist and short story writer, Professor Emeritus in Creative Writing at the University of Aberdeen. From 2017-2021 he was the Edinburgh Makar (Poet Laureate) and in 2018 he was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun by the government of Japan. With his wife Janani he runs the Sri Chinmoy meditation centre in Edinburgh.
He has published numerous works of poetry, fiction and drama. His volumes of poetry include Glasgow Zen, Seasons of the Heart, Clear Light, and most recently A Wee Bit Zen. Three of his novels are set in and strongly concerned with Japan: The Pure Land, Night Boat, and Mister Timeless Blyth, the last of these a biographical novel about the life of R. H. Blyth.
