Janice Hally

Janice Hally began writing drama and plays while still at school. At 18 she was accepted on the first Scottish Youth Theatre's Young Playwright's Workshop before attending Glasgow University to study Drama and English. The year she graduated with a Master of Arts she won the ISPC international playwriting award, and her play "Ready or Not" was professionally produced. The play caused controversy, being first banned in Edinburgh, before transferring to the Tron Theatre in Glasgow. After successful run in Glasgow it was adapted and produced for television and at the age of 23, Hally was nominated as Best New Writer to Television in the British PYE Television Awards. In the following 15 years she became one of Scotland's most prolific television writers, with more than 650 credits for drama series, single screenplays and children's drama. Her work includes some of the most highly-rated and innovative drama in her homeland. She and Peter May co-created the ground-breaking Gaelic drama serial Machair and Hally wrote the scene-by-scene breakdowns for its epic 99-episode story arc, as well as writing most of the scripts. As a result of her work on Machair, she was shortlisted by the Writer's Guild of Great Britain for their Best Non-English Language Award.