Des Dillon | |
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Born | Derrick Daniel Dillon 8 June 1960 Coatbridge, Scotland |
Occupation | Novelist, screenwriter, dramatist, poet |
Nationality | Scottish |
Genre | Fiction, poetry, drama |
Notable works | Me And Ma Gal (1995), Six Black Candles (2002), Singin' I'm No A Billy He's A Tim (2005) My Epileptic Lurcher (2008) |
Children | 5 |
Literatureportal |
Derrick Daniel Dillon (born 8 June 1960) is a Scottish writer. He was Writer-in-Residence at Castlemilk from 1998-2000. He is a poet, short story writer, novelist, dramatist, broadcaster, screenwriter, and scriptwriter for TV, stage and radio. His books have been published in the US, India, Russia, Sweden, in Catalan, French and Spanish. His poetry has been anthologised internationally.
He was born in Coatbridge and studied English literature at Strathclyde University before becoming a teacher.
His novel Me and Ma Gal (1995), chronicles a day in the lives of two best friends, Derek and Gal, set against the Coatbridge landscape of slagpits and steelworks, and was shortlisted for the Saltire Society Scottish First Book of the Year Award, [1] was included in The 100 Greatest Ever Scottish Books and won the World Book Day ‘We Are What We Read’ poll for the novel that best describes Scotland today.
In Six Black Candles (2002) (a novel originally written as a play for Birds of Paradise Theatre Company in 1999) the heroine Caroline, who has been deserted by her wayward husband Bobby, finds her sisters embarking on a ritualistic revenge, centered on the six black candles of the title.
Des Dillon's play, Singin I'm No a Billy He's a Tim gained critical acclaim at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2005 and toured Scotland and Ireland in 2007. Monks (2006) was originally published as The Big Q (2001) and was adapted into play which enjoyed its world premiere in the Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh in 2007.
My Epileptic Lurcher (2008) is the story of Manny Riley, a recovering alcoholic and struggling scriptwriter with a serious anger management problem, and his newly adopted lurcher, Bailey, who has epilepsy. The book is loosely based on Des Dillon's own life, and his lurcher (also called Bailey) who has epilepsy.
His latest award was The Lion and Unicorn prize for the best of Irish and British literature in the Russian Language (2007).
Des lives in Galloway with his wife and dogs.
Epilepsy is a group of non-communicable neurological disorders characterized by recurrent epileptic seizures. An epileptic seizure is the clinical manifestation of an abnormal, excessive, purposeless and synchronized electrical discharge in the brain cells called neurons. The occurrence of two or more unprovoked seizures defines epilepsy. The occurrence of just one seizure may warrant the definition in a more clinical usage where recurrence may be able to be prejudged. Epileptic seizures can vary from brief and nearly undetectable periods to long periods of vigorous shaking due to abnormal electrical activity in the brain. These episodes can result in physical injuries, either directly such as broken bones or through causing accidents. In epilepsy, seizures tend to recur and may have no immediate underlying cause. Isolated seizures that are provoked by a specific cause such as poisoning are not deemed to represent epilepsy. People with epilepsy may be treated differently in various areas of the world and experience varying degrees of social stigma due to the alarming nature of their symptoms.
Airdrie is a town in North Lanarkshire, Scotland. It lies on a plateau roughly 400 ft above sea level, and is approximately 12 miles (19 km) east of Glasgow city centre. As of 2012, the town had a population of around 37,130. Historically part of Lanarkshire, Airdrie forms part of a conurbation with its neighbour Coatbridge, in what is commonly known as the Monklands, formerly a district..
"Oranges and Lemons" is a traditional English nursery rhyme, folksong, and singing game which refers to the bells of several churches, all within or close to the City of London. It is listed in the Roud Folk Song Index as No 13190. The earliest known printed version appeared c. 1744.
Coatbridge is a town in North Lanarkshire, Scotland, about 8+1⁄2 miles east of Glasgow city centre, set in the central Lowlands. Along with neighbouring town Airdrie, Coatbridge forms the area known as the Monklands, often considered to be part of the Greater Glasgow urban area – although officially they have not been included in population figures since 2016 due to small gaps between the Monklands and Glasgow built-up areas.
William Andrew Murray Boyd is a Scottish novelist, short story writer and screenwriter.
James Robertson is a Scottish writer who grew up in Bridge of Allan, Stirlingshire. He is the author of several short story and poetry collections, and has published seven novels: The Fanatic, Joseph Knight, The Testament of Gideon Mack, And the Land Lay Still, The Professor of Truth, and To Be Continued… and News of the Dead. The Testament of Gideon Mack was long-listed for the 2006 Man Booker Prize.
CDKL5 is a gene that provides instructions for making a protein called cyclin-dependent kinase-like 5 also known as serine/threonine kinase 9 (STK9) that is essential for normal brain development. Mutations in the gene can cause deficiencies in the protein. The gene regulates neuronal morphology through cytoplasmic signaling and controlling gene expression. The CDKL5 protein acts as a kinase, which is an enzyme that changes the activity of other proteins by adding a cluster of oxygen and phosphorus atoms at specific positions. Researchers are currently working to determine which proteins are targeted by the CDKL5 protein.
Christine De Luca is a Scottish poet and writer from Shetland, who writes in both English and Shetland dialect. Her poetry has been translated into many languages. She was appointed Edinburgh's Makar, or poet laureate from 2014 to 2017. De Luca is a global advocate for the Shetland dialect and literature of the Northern Isles of Scotland.
Dilys Rose is a Scottish fiction writer and poet. Born in 1954 in Glasgow, Rose studied at Edinburgh University, where she taught creative writing from 2002 until 2017. She was Director of the MSc in Creative Writing by Online Learning from 2012 to 2017. She is currently a Royal Literary Fellow at the University of Glasgow. Her third novel Unspeakable was published by Freight Books in 2017.
Edward "Monks" Leeford is a character in the 1838 novel Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens. He is actually the criminally-inclined half-brother of Oliver Twist, but he hides his identity. Monks' parents separated when he was a child, and his father had a relationship with a young woman, Agnes Fleming. This resulted in Agnes' pregnancy. She died in childbirth after giving birth to the baby that would be named Oliver Twist.
Benign Rolandic epilepsy or self-limited epilepsy with centrotemporal spikes is the most common epilepsy syndrome in childhood. Most children will outgrow the syndrome, hence the label benign. The seizures, sometimes referred to as sylvian seizures, start around the central sulcus of the brain.
Coatbridge is an urban town located on the eastern fringes of Glasgow, Scotland. The town quickly expanded during the late-eighteenth century as a centre of iron making, in part because it had a direct canal link to Glasgow. Cheap unskilled labour was in large demand and as result, the town became a very popular destination for vast numbers of people arriving in Scotland during this period.
The history of Coatbridge, Scotland, is one of dramatic change. The town transformed from an obscure group of 18th century Lanarkshire hamlets strung out on the road between Glasgow and Airdrie to a world leading centre of iron production in the 19th century. Development took off at an incredible rate in the 19th century and led to massive changes to the landscape and an explosion in the population.
Though Coatbridge is a most interesting seat of industry, it is anything but beautiful. Dense clouds of smoke roll over it incessantly, and impart to all the buildings a peculiarly dingy aspect. A coat of black dust overlies everything, and in a few hours the visitor finds his complexion considerably deteriorated by the flakes of soot which fill the air, and settle on his face. To experience Coatbridge it must be visited at night when it presents a most extraordinary spectacle.... From the steeple of the parish church the flames of no fewer than fifty blast furnaces may be seen.... The flames have a positively fascinating effect. Now they shoot far upward, and breaking off short, expire among the smoke; again spreading outward, they curl over the lips of the furnace, and dart through the doorways, as if determined to annihilate the bounds within which they are confined; then they sink low into the crater, and come forth with renewed strength in the shape of great tongues of fire, which sway backward and forward, as if seeking with a fierce eagerness something to devour. The Scotsman, 1869
Dominic Cooper is a British novelist, poet and watchmaker. He won the Somerset Maugham Award for his novel The Dead of Winter (1975).
Duncan James Williamson was a Scottish storyteller and singer, and a member of the Scottish Traveller community. The Scottish poet and scholar Hamish Henderson once referred to him as "possibly the most extraordinary tradition-bearer of the whole Traveller tribe."
Archibald Macpherson is a Scottish football commentator and author. He has been commentating on Scottish football, on radio and television, for over four decades.
Preeti Singh is an Indian author based at Chandigarh. Singh has been working as a professional writer since last 21 years before authoring her four best-selling novels. Her debut novel - Flirting With Fate was published by Mahaveer Publishers, India in 2012, followed by Crossroads, which was published by Authors Press, India, in 2014. Her second book Crossroads has made its place in the India Book Of Records as the First Indian Fiction having real-life people as characters.
Gerry Hassan is a Scottish writer, commentator and academic. He is Professor of Social Change at Glasgow Caledonian University, having previously worked at the University of Dundee and the University of the West of Scotland, where he completed his doctorate. He has also previously worked for the Institute for Public Policy Research and Demos where he led their Scotland 2020 and Glasgow 2020 programmes and OpenDemocracy. He has written widely in the Scottish and UK press, including The Spectator, The Scotsman, The Herald, Holyrood, Sunday Mail, The Guardian and The National (Scotland) on topics and issues related to the United Kingdom, particularly Scotland and Scottish Independence.
Scott James Kyle, is a Scottish actor, best known for his roles as Ross in Outlander, Clancy in The Angels' Share, and Corporal Stu Pearson in the film Kajaki: The True Story. Kyle received the 2010 Stage Awards Best Actor Award for his role in the play Singin' I'm No A Billy He's A Tim.