Iain Finlay Macleod - A Writing Life
Iain Finlay Macleod was born on Lewis in 1973.
He was encouraged to write at a young age by his uncle, Dr Finlay Macleod, a dramatist and writer of children’s books. His first experience of making theatre came at the National Gaelic Youth Theatre in the early 1990s.
In 1994 he attended The International School for Writers, Actors and Directors at the Royal Court Theatre, London, and began submitting work to the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh. For the Trav- erse, as well as The Devil Masters, Macleod wrote The Pearlfisher, I Was a Beautiful Day, Homers and Broke, a version of David Lescot’s Un homme en Faillite.
Macleod has written more than 50 dramatic works for radio, theatre, television and film, and his work has been shown in America, Germany and France.
Other plays include Somersaults for the National Theatre of Scotland and St. Kilda – The Opera, which was performed in five European countries simulta- neously in four languages.
Macleod was Associate Playwright for two years (2007-2009) with Playwrights’ Studio Scotland and writer-in-residence at Sabhal Mor Ostaig for two years.
Macleod was awarded the Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship in 2009, and is associate artist (Gaelic) with the National Theatre of Scotland. The Devil Masters was written when Macleod was the IASH Edinburgh University/Traverse Theatre Fellow in 2013.