Alan Spence
Scottish writer
Alan Spence (born 1947) is a Scottish writer and is Professor in Creative Writing at the University of Aberdeen, where he is also artistic director of the annual WORD Festival. He was born in Glasgow, educated at Allan Glen's School there, and much of his work is set in the city.
Spence is a poet and playwright, novelist and short-story writer, and has recently been commissioned by Scottish Opera to set words to a piece of music by Miriama Young.
His first work was the collection of short stories Its colours they are fine, first published in 1977. This was followed by two plays, Sailmaker in 1982 and Space Invaders in 1983. The novel The Magic Flute appeared in 1990 along with his first book of poetry Glasgow Zen. In 1991, another of his plays, Changed Days, was published before a brief hiatus.
He returned in 1996 with Stone Garden, another collection of short stories.
In 2006, The Pure Land, a historical novel set in Japan, was published by Canongate Books, and is based on the life of Thomas Blake Glover who is allegedly immortalized in the story of Madame Butterfly.
In 2022, Edinburgh Come All Ye, a collection of poetry, was published by Scotland Street Press.
“Alan Spence” enters the record as scottish writer. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Alan, Spence and Scottish can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Alan Spence” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Alan, Spence and Scottish provides the most credible route into that argument.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4707810. VIAF identifies the subject as 85467961. The Library of Congress control number is n78010592. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1947, 1977, 1982 and 1983.
Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
- Locating cited institutions
Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Alan Spence”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Alan Spence primary sources, Alan Spence archive and Alan research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Alan Spence”?
- Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
- How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Alan Spence” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.