Brian Johnstone

[Brian Johnstone]

Born in Edinburgh in 1950, Brian Johnstone has lived in the Fife countryside since 1972. From 1975 to 1997 he worked as a primary school teacher in various Fife schools. Since returning to writing in the late 1980s, he has published a full collection and two pamphlets, as well as appearing in anthologies and other publications in Scotland, elsewhere in the UK and in Europe and the USA.

Several of his poems have been translated into Catalan, Swedish, Polish, Slovakian & Lithuanian, and published in the respective countries. In 2009 a small collection of his poems in Italian translation was published by L'Officina (Vincenza). In 2003 he won the Poetry on the Fringe competition at the Edinburgh Festival. Previous successes include winning the Writers' Bureau (2003) and the Mallard (1998) competitions, as well as being a prize winner in the UK National Poetry Competition (2000).

In 1998 he was one of the founders of StAnza: Scotland's International Poetry Festival, having previously co-founded Shore Poets in Edinburgh in 1991. He has served as a Director of StAnza since 2001 and has also taught creative writing for the University of St Andrews Open Association and the Open College of the Arts. Brian Johnstone lives with his wife, the maker of artist's books Jean Johnstone, on the edge of the East Neuk of Fife.

Photo: Jim Nock