Film and television
Morrison worked as a television and film writer and director from 1990 to 2004. [12] In 1992, he wrote scripts in Angers, France for three months after winning the Pepinières Scholarship Pour Jeunes Artistes Européens. [13] The Scottish Arts Council gave Morrison a Media Artists Award in 1994, allowing him to develop and direct several short films. [13]
In 2000, Morrison was nominated for a BAFTA Scotland Award for Best Director (Television) and Best TV Production for I Saw You. [14] I Saw You won the Royal Television Society Programme Awards for Best Regional Drama in 2001. [15] [16]
From 2003 to 2005, Morrison was a resident scriptwriter at Madstone Films in New York. [6] [12] However, after two years of work, his film project fell apart. [7] His first feature film screenplay, Swung (2007), was an adaptation of his novel. [17] Morrison was also a scriptwriter for Cold Call and Netflix's Outlaw King . [18]
Cultural critic
Morrison regularly writes as a cultural commentator for newspapers, including The Guardian , [19] [20] The Scotsman , [21] The Telegraph , [22] and The Times . [23] He is also a contributor to magazines such as Bella Caledonia , [24] The Psychologist , [25] Psychology Today , [26] Quillette [27] and the literary journal 3:AM Magazine . [28]
At the Edinburgh International Book Festival in 2011, Morrison gave a talk where he predicted the end of print books in 25 years; a related article followed this in The Guardian. [29] He wrote that it will be impossible for authors to continue to make a living writing books due to changes in sales models and the decline of advances from publishers. [29] He has also written about the role of fan fiction in publishing and what he had dubbed the "self-epublishing bubble". [30] [31]
Morrison was originally a supporter of Scottish independence; however, he later publicly stated that he had changed his mind and voted for remaining in the United Kingdom. [32] [33] [34]
Morrison says he uses writing to unravel the utopian/apocalyptic mindset that he was brought up with. [35] In 2016, he gave a TEDx Talk on the history and consequences of utopian projects. [35] He has also written articles about collectives and utopian projects. [36] [37] His writings on this topic range from "top 10 books about communes" to an article about cults for Psychology Today. [38] [39]
In a September 2014 article in The Guardian, Morrison said that young adult dystopian fiction serves as propaganda for "right-wing libertarianism". [40] This piece "sent shockwaves through sci-fi fandom", [41] resulting in responses from other writers and scholars. [42] [43]
Author
In 2005, Morrison received the Scottish Arts Council Writer's Bursary, a cash award that allows unpublished writers to devote time to writing. [12] [44] Published a year later in 2006, Morrison's first book, The Last Book You Read and Other Stories, is a short story collection that explores relationships in the era of globalisation. The Times said it was "the most compelling Scottish literary debut since Trainspotting ". [45] The Edinburgh Companion to Contemporary Scottish Literature says, "Undeniably Morrison's collection of short stories makes a contribution to contemporary world literature". [46] However, Arena magazine responded by calling Morrison a "Scottish purveyor erudite filth". [7] One of the stories from the collection was made into the short film None of the Above. [47]
In 2006, Morrison received the UNESCO/Edinburgh City of Literature residency at Varuna, The Writer's House in Australia. [12] That same year, he was a finalist for the 2006 Arena Magazine Man of the Year Literature Prize. [12] New Statesman named Morrison to its list of "five young writers to watch" in March 2007. [48]
Morrison's first novel, Swung (2007) was about a Glasgow yuppie couple who work for a television company and get involved with the swinging scene. [12] [49] [50] The novel was adapted into a film in 2015, with Morrison writing the screenplay. [51] Distance was Morrison's second novel. It explored phone sex, parenthood, and two people involved in a long-distance relationship. [7] [50] The Telegraph said, "[Morrison's] narrative voice is completely original. His prose feels utterly contemporary, with a smooth, readable texture." [50] The Times called it "utterly compelling...Morrison is one of the finest novelists around". [52] However, other reviewers found the book depressing; Jonathan Cape of The Scotsman noted, "A death would liven things up" and there is "too much verbiage [and] conversational psychotherapy." [53]
Released in 2009, Morrison's third novel Ménage is about three dysfunctional artists living in a bisexual ménage à trois in 1990s London. [54] Morrison based the novel on his experiences within the fashionable nihilistic circles of the British art scene after graduating from art school. [28] The novel was inspired by the infamous ménage à trois between Henry Miller, his wife, and her lover. [6]
His 2012 novel, Close Your Eyes, is about a woman who was brought up in a hippie commune in the 1960s and 1970s and returns 25 years later to search for the mother who abandoned her. [55] Morrison has described the book as a partly autobiographical reaction to "coming to terms with a hippy childhood" and being raised by political extremists. [56] [57] [58] [59] Close Your Eyes won the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Book Awards Book of the Year Fiction Prize in 2013. [60]
Morrison's Tales from the Mall (2012) is "a mash-up of fact, fiction, essays, and multi-format media that tells of the rise of the shopping mall". [61] Tales from the Mall won Not the Booker Prize in 2012. [62] It was shortlisted for the Saltire Society Book of the Year Award and the Creative Scotland Writer of the Year Award. [20] [63]
Morrison's seventh novel, Nina X, was published in 2019. [64] Written as a journal, the novel is about a woman who was raised in a commune-cult without toys or books and escapes into the outside world. [64] [65] Nina X won the 2019 Saltire Society Literary Award for Fiction Book of the Year. [66] It is currently in development as a movie by director David Mackenzie. [15]
How to Survive Everything is Morrison's eighth novel and was published in 2021. [67] This thriller, written in the style of a survival guide, is about a teenager who is abducted and taken to a bunker by her father who believes the world is ending. [65] [68] The novel was longlisted for Bloody Scotland's The McIlvanney Prize 2021. [69] In 2022, the novel was optioned for a television series. [15]
