Ewan Morrison Explained

Ewan Morrison
Education:Glasgow School of Art
Awards:Saltire Society Literary Awards
Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Book Awards
Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland Awards
Not the Booker Prize
Birth Date:1968
Birth Place:Wick, Scotland

Ewan Morrison (born 1968) is a Scottish author, cultural critic, director, and screenwriter. He has published eight novels and a collection of short stories, as of 2021. His novel Nina X won the Saltire Society Literary Award for Fiction Book of the Year 2019. Literary critic Stuart Kelly described Morrison as "the most fluent and intelligent writer of his generation here in Scotland".[1]

Life

Morrison was born in Wick, Caithness, Scotland in 1968.[2] [3] His parents are singer Edna Morrison and the poet, painter, and librarian David Morrison.[4] [5] His father was a "literary figure of national significance" but was also an alcoholic.[6] [7] In interviews and essays, Morrison has talked about his unorthodox childhood in Caithness as a "hippie experiment".[8]

Morrison attended Pulteneytown Academy and Wick High School.[9] He was bullied by other children because he grew up as a cultural outsider and had a stutter.[10]

As a teenager, Morrison enjoyed making figures from modeling clay and decided to attend art school. He attended Glasgow School of Art where he experimented with portrait painting and photography under Thomas Joshua Cooper before discovering documentary film making. He graduated in 1990 with a first-class degree in art documentaries and also won the dissertation prize.

Morrison has been a member of several organisations he later described as cults, the Socialist Workers Party, an organisation related to Tvind, and a New Age group.[11]

Career

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. The Scottish Arts Council gave Morrison a Media Artists Award in 1994, allowing him to develop and direct several short films.

In 2000, Morrison was nominated for a BAFTA Scotland Award for Best Director (Television) and Best TV Production for I Saw You.[13] I Saw You won the Royal Television Society Programme Awards for Best Regional Drama in 2001.[14] [15]

From 2003 to 2005, Morrison was a resident scriptwriter at Madstone Films in New York. However, after two years of work, his film project fell apart. His first feature film screenplay, Swung (2007), was an adaptation of his novel.[16] Morrison was also a scriptwriter for Cold Call and Netflix's Outlaw King.[17]

Cultural critic

Morrison regularly writes as a cultural commentator for newspapers, including The Guardian,[18] The Scotsman,[19] The Telegraph,[20] and The Times.[21] He is also a contributor to magazines such as Bella Caledonia,[22] The Psychologist,[23] Psychology Today,[24] Quillette,[25] and the literary journal [26] .

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.[27] 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. He has also written about the role of fan fiction in publishing and what he had dubbed the "self-epublishing bubble".[28] [29]

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.[30] [31] [32]

Morrison says he uses writing to unravel the utopian/apocalyptic mindset that he was brought up with.[33] In 2016, he gave a TEDx Talk on the history and consequences of utopian projects. He has also written articles about collectives and utopian projects.[34] [35] His writings on this topic range from "top 10 books about communes" to an article about cults for Psychology Today.[36] [37]

In a September 2014 article in The Guardian, Morrison said that young adult dystopian fiction serves as propaganda for "right-wing libertarianism".[38] This piece "sent shockwaves through sci-fi fandom",[39] resulting in responses from other writers and scholars.[40] [41]

Author

In 2005, Morrison received the Scottish Arts Council Writer's Bursary, a cash award that allows unpublished writers to devote time to writing.[42] 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".[43] The Edinburgh Companion to Contemporary Scottish Literature says, "Undeniably Morrison’s collection of short stories makes a contribution to contemporary world literature".[44] However, Arena magazine responded by calling Morrison a "Scottish purveyor erudite filth". One of the stories from the collection was made into the short film None of the Above.[45]

In 2006, Morrison received the UNESCO/Edinburgh City of Literature residency at Varuna, The Writer's House in Australia. That same year, he was a finalist for the 2006 Arena Magazine Man of the Year Literature Prize. New Statesman named Morrison to its list of "five young writers to watch" in March 2007.[46]

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.[47] The novel was adapted into a film in 2014, with Morrison writing the screenplay.[48] Distance was Morrison's second novel. It explored phone sex, parenthood, and two people involved in a long-distance relationship.[49] The Telegraph said, "[Morrison’s] narrative voice is completely original. His prose feels utterly contemporary, with a smooth, readable texture." The Times called it "utterly compelling...Morrison is one of the finest novelists around".[50] 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."[51]

Released in 2009, Morrison's third novel Ménage is about three dysfunctional artists living in a bisexual ménage à trois in 1990s London.[52] Morrison based the novel on his experiences within the fashionable nihilistic circles of the British art scene after graduating from art school. The novel was inspired by the infamous ménage à trois between Henry Miller, his wife, and her lover.

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.[53] Morrison has described the book as a partly autobiographical reaction to "coming to terms with a hippy childhood' and being raised by political extremists.[54] [55] [56] [57] Close Your Eyes won the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Book Awards Book of the Year Fiction Prize in 2013.[58]

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".[59] Tales from the Mall won Not the Booker Prize in 2012.[60] It was shortlisted for the Saltire Society Book of the Year Award and the Creative Scotland Writer of the Year Award.[61] [62]

Morrison's seventh novel, Nina X, was published in 2019. 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.[63] [64] Nina X won the 2019 Saltire Society Literary Award for Fiction Book of the Year.[65] It is currently in development as a movie by director David Mackenzie.

How to Survive Everything is Morrison's eighth novel and was published in 2021.[66] 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.[67] The novel was longlisted for Bloody Scotland's The McIlvanney Prize 2021.[68] In 2022, the novel was optioned for a television series.

Themes and style

Literary critic Stuart Kelly described Morrison as "the most fluent and intelligent writer of his generation here in Scotland". Professor of Scottish literature Marie-Odile Pittin-Hedon says that Morrison's fiction and essays explore the human condition within the globalized world, similar to the subjects of postmodern sociologist Zygmunt Bauman.[69] In a summary written for the British Council, Garann Holcombe says:

In many ways, Morrison’s work, like that of Michel Houellebecq, who is very much his literary forebear, is extremely frightening. It deals with illusion and distance; with everything we manufacture to move us from language, dialogue, contact, knowledge, love, ourselves...In his universe, we are naive participants in an endless narrative invention based on a palimpsest of lies, stories and half-truths – wanting colour, but with no interest in what that colour is made of.
Morrison's writing has been mistaken for that of a female writer,[70] because of his convincing portrayal of "a woman’s point of view about such topics as breastfeeding, depression and how it feels to abandon your child".

For Morrison's first five books, he practiced "experiential writing", putting himself into new and often extreme situations to find material for his novels, including becoming a swinger, a secret shopper, and a New Age convert.[71] He admits, "All my characters are a bit of me but pushed to limits...."

Awards

Year Work Award Category Result Ref
2005 The Last Book You Read and Other Stories Arena Magazine Man of the Year AwardFiction
2012 — Writer of the Year [72] [73]
Tales from the Mall —
2013 Close Your Eyes Fiction
2019 Nina X Fiction

Personal life

As an adult, Morrison learned to manage his stutter. He married and had two children. After a film project he had worked on for two years in New York fell apart in 2005, Morrison says he "cracked up" and turned to "dangerous, alcohol-fuelled behaviour". He lost his home and his marriage ended in divorce.

He is now married to Emily Ballou, an Australian-American poet and former lesbian whom he met in 2006. The couple lives in Glasgow. They have collaborated on several screenwriting projects.[74]

Works

Film and television

Novels

Short story collection

Articles

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Kelly . Stuart . 6 May 2019 . Book Review: Nina X, by Ewan Morrison . 17 February 2024 . The Scotsman.
  2. News: McGinty . Stephen . 2024-02-17 . I'm the victim of a misguided experiment in utopianism . 2024-02-17 . The Times . en . 0140-0460.
  3. Web site: Ewan Morrison . 2024-02-20 . National Galleries Scotland . en.
  4. Web site: Gunn . George . 7 September 2012 . Obituary: David Morrison, Poet, Painter, Editor, and Librarian . 6 February 2019 . The Scotsman.
  5. Web site: Christie . Janet . 28 July 2012 . Interview: Ewan Morrison, Author of Close Your Eyes . 1 April 2019 . The Scotsman.
  6. Web site: Gallix . Andrew . 28 August 2009 . More Thanatos Than Eros . 2024-02-17 . 3:AM Magazine . en-GB.
  7. News: Brocklehurst . Steven . 2014-05-20 . Ewan Morrison: King of the Swingers Is Happy to Settle Down . 2024-02-19 . BBC News . en-GB.
  8. News: Wilson . Mike . 28 June 2008 . Time and Place: Ewan Morrison . 6 February 2019 . The Sunday Times.
  9. Web site: Scott . David G. . 2019-05-01 . Acclaimed Author Talks of Caithness Influence on New Novel . 2024-02-20 . John O'Groat Journal and Caithness Courier . en.
  10. Web site: Morrison . Ewan . My father made me scared to speak. . The Guardian . 22 June 2008 . 6 February 2019.
  11. Daily Telegraph . How did three generations of my family fall into cults?. 6 May 2019. Ewan Morrison .
  12. Web site: Holcombe . Garan . Ewan Morrison - Literature . 2024-02-17 . British Council.
  13. Web site: Hunter . Allan . 2 November 2000 . One Life Stand Leads Nods for Scottish BAFTAs . 2024-02-20 . Screen Daily . en.
  14. Web site: Petski . Denise . 2022-11-15 . Ewan Morrison's 'How To Survive Everything' Optioned For TV Series Development By Made Up Stories, Fifth Season & Kindling Pictures . 2024-02-19 . Deadline . en-US.
  15. Web site: Wilkes . Neil . 2001-03-21 . RTS Awards - Winners In Full . 2024-02-20 . Digital Spy . en-GB.
  16. News: Andreas Wiseman . 6 November 2013 . Works Swings for Kennedy's Swung . 28 November 2013 . ScreernDaily.com.
  17. News: Glynn . Paul . 2020-05-24 . UK film and TV: 'Expect Lots of Dramas in Space or Under the Sea' . 2024-02-20 . en-GB.
  18. News: Morrison . Ewan . 2012-07-30 . Why social media isn't the magic bullet for self-epublished authors . 2024-02-19 . The Guardian . en-GB . 0261-3077.
  19. Morrison, Ewan (22 August 2009) "Frozen Like Some Primordial Mud-Man and With Clothes Torn, I Saw The Stone Roses". The Scotsman. Accessed 19 February 2024.
  20. Morrison, Ewan (21 March 2021) "Only the Arts Can Help Us Understand Our Lives in Lockdown". The Telegraph. Accessed 19 February 2024.
  21. Morrison, Ewan (23 July 2009) "The Magic of a Ménage à Trois". The Times. Accessed 19 February 2024.
  22. Web site: Morrison . Ewan . 2010-11-16 . Why Y Matters (Mapping the Coming Consumption Patterns of Generation Y) . 2024-02-19 . Bella Caledonia . en-GB.
  23. Morrison, Ewan (8 April 2019) "The Oceanic Feeling". The Psychologist. Accessed 19 February 2024.
  24. Morrison, Ewan (12 March 2021) "Banning Conspiracy Theories Will Never Work". Psychology Today. Accessed 19 February 2024.
  25. Morrison, Ewan (31 March 2019) "Milan Kundera Warned Us About Historical Amnesia. Now It's Happening Again". Quillette. Accessed 19 February 2024.
  26. Web site: Morrison . Ewan . 5 July 2009 . Death of a Nihilist or Obituary for a Nobody . 2024-02-19 . 3:AM Magazine . en-GB.
  27. News: Morrison . Ewan . 2011-08-22 . Are Books Dead, and Can Authors Survive? . 2024-02-21 . The Guardian . en-GB . 0261-3077.
  28. News: Morrison . Ewan . 2012-08-13 . In the Beginning, There was Fan Fiction: From the Four Gospels to Fifty Shades . 2024-02-21 . The Guardian . en-GB . 0261-3077.
  29. News: Morrison . Ewan . 2012-01-30 . The Self-ePublishing Bubble . 2024-02-21 . The Guardian . en-GB . 0261-3077.
  30. Web site: Leatham . Xantha . 16 September 2014 . Scottish Independence: Ewan Morrison's No Switch . 18 February 2024 . The Scotsman.
  31. Web site: Morrison . Ewan . 2014-07-05 . I've Decided to Vote Yes . 2024-02-20 . Bella Caledonia . en-GB.
  32. Web site: 20 September 2014 . From 'Yes' To 'No': One Scot's Shift On Independence . 20 February 2024 . NPR (National Public Radio).
  33. Web site: Morrison . Ewan . Why We Would Be Happier Without Utopia . live . https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211215/2dRlssVF7fc . 2021-12-15 . 1 April 2019 . TEDx Talks . 27 April 2016 . YouTube.
  34. Web site: Morrison . Ewan . 9 May 2018 . Why We Would Be Happier Without Utopia . 1 April 2019 . Sceptical Scot.
  35. Web site: Morrison . Ewan . 8 March 2018 . Why Utopian Communities Fail . 1 April 2019 . Areo magazine.
  36. News: Morrison . Ewan . 2013-12-11 . Ewan Morrison's Top 10 Books about Communes . 2024-02-21 . The Guardian . en-GB . 0261-3077.
  37. Web site: Morrison . Ewan . 29 March 2023 . 12 Signs That Someone May Be Involved With a Cult . 2024-02-21 . Psychology Today . en-US.
  38. News: Morrison . Ewan . 2014-09-01 . YA Dystopias Teach Children to Submit to the Free Market, Not Fight Authority . 2024-02-21 . The Guardian . en-GB . 0261-3077.
  39. Web site: Isaacs . Jacqueline . 2014-09-23 . The Free Market in Dystopian Literature . 2024-02-21 . Faith and Public Life . en-US.
  40. Skwire, Sarah. "Making Hamburger from Sacred Cows." Freeman: Ideas on Liberty, vol. 64 (October 2014): 39–40. via EBSCO, accessed 20 February 2024.
  41. Tate, Andrew. Apocalyptic Fiction, 21st Century Genre Fiction, Bloomsbury Academic, 2017. p. 126. via EBSCO, accessed 20 February 2024.
  42. Web site: 2014-06-04 . Scottish Arts Council New Writers' Bursaries . 2024-02-20 . WritersServices . en.
  43. News: Gordon . Greg . 26 June 2005 . For Ewan The Only Way is Up . 1 April 2019 . The Times.
  44. Book: 2007 . Edinburgh University Press . 978-0748623969 . Schoene . Berthold . Edinburgh . en .
  45. Web site: None of the Above. 16 min. Directed by Siri Rodnes . Edinburgh International Film Festival . 1 April 2019.
  46. “Five Young Writers to Watch.” (26 March 2007). New Statesman 136 (4837): 63. via EBSCO, accessed 20 February 2024.
  47. News: Welsh . Irvine . 2007-04-21 . Boys Keep Swinging . 2024-02-17 . The Guardian . en-GB . 0261-3077.
  48. Web site: Swung . 28 November 2013 . Sigma Films . 21 January 2019 . https://web.archive.org/web/20190121191540/http://www.sigmafilms.com/films/swung/ . dead .
  49. Web site: Thorne . Matt . 31 August 2008 . Review: Distance by Ewan Morrison . 1 April 2019 . The Telegraph . London.
  50. News: Johnstone . Doug . 27 June 2008 . Distance by Ewan Morrison . 1 April 2019 . The Times.
  51. Web site: Cape . Jonathan . 11 July 2008 . Book Review: Distance . 1 April 2019 . The Scotsman.
  52. Web site: Kelly . Stuart . 3 July 2009 . Book Review: Ménage, by Ewan Morrison . 17 February 2024 . The Scotsman.
  53. Web site: Housham . Jane . 23 August 2013 . Close Your Eyes by Ewan Morrison – review . 1 April 2019 . The Guardian.
  54. News: Wilson . Mike . 29 June 2008 . Time and Place: Ewan Morrison . 1 April 2019 . The Times.
  55. Web site: Moore . Lucy . 26 August 2012 . Close Your Eyes by Ewan Morrison . 1 April 2019 . Female First.
  56. News: Morrison . Ewan . 12 September 2012 . Coming to Terms with a Hippy Childhood . 1 April 2019 . The Times.
  57. Web site: Morrison . Ewan . 8 March 2018 . Why Utopian Communities Fail . 1 April 2019 . Areo Magazine.
  58. News: 2013-11-03 . Empire Antarctica Named Scottish Book of the Year . 2024-02-19 . BBC News . en-GB.
  59. Web site: Ewan Morrison: Shopping Channeled . The List . 1 April 2019.
  60. Web site: Jordison . Sam . 15 October 2012 . Not the Booker Prize: The Winner . 1 April 2019 . The Guardian.
  61. Web site: Brown . Criag . Kelman and Welsh Vie for Top Scots Literary Prize . 19 February 2024 . The Scotsman.
  62. Web site: 11 November 2012 . Creative Scotland Awards: The Nominees . 19 February 2024 . The Scotsman.
  63. Web site: April 2019 . Nina X by Ewan Morrison Review – Life After Comrade Chen . 25 May 2020 . The Guardian.
  64. Web site: Forbes . Malcolm . 8 March 2021 . Ewan Morrison Topples Our Expectations . 9 April 2021 . Herald Scotland.
  65. Web site: 2 December 2019 . The Saltire Society Announces Winners of 2019 Literary Awards . 2024-02-17 . Creative Scotland . en.
  66. Web site: Massie . Allan . 24 February 2021 . Book Review: How To Survive Everything, by Ewan Morrison . 9 April 2021 . Scotsman Online.
  67. Web site: How To Survive Everything by Ewan Morrison . Saraband . 9 April 2021.
  68. Web site: McIlvanney Prize Longlist 2021 . 2024-02-17 . Bloody Scotland . en-GB.
  69. Book: Pittin-Hedon . Marie-Odile . The Space of Fiction: Voices From Scotland in a Post-Devolution Age . 2015 . Scottish Literature International . 9781908980090 . 1 April 2019.
  70. Web site: 7 March 2015 . A Conversation with Ewan Morrison . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20190401174044/https://radikalnews.com/a-conversation-with-ewan-morrison/ . 1 April 2019 . 18 February 2024 . Radikal News.
  71. Web site: 28 February 2016 . Theme: #FindX . 1 April 2019 . Ted.com.
  72. Web site: Ferguson . Brian . 29 November 2012 . Farmer who took on Trump triumphs in Spirit awards . 17 February 2024 . The Scotsman.
  73. Web site: Bump . Philip . 2012-12-04 . Scot who stood up to Trump development deservedly named 'Top Scot' . 2024-02-17 . Grist . en-us.
  74. Web site: Lowry . Brian . TV Review: 'American Blackout,' 'War of the Worlds:' Tapping into Fear in Different Eras . Variety . 24 October 2013 . 1 April 2019.
  75. Web site: Blue Christmas . 2024-02-20 . National Library of Scotland.
  76. Web site: The Contract . 2024-02-17 . Torino Film Fest . en-US.
  77. Web site: The Contract . 2024-02-20 . National Library of Scotland.
  78. Web site: The Proposal . 2024-02-20 . National Library of Scotland.
  79. Web site: I Saw You . 2024-02-20 . National Library of Scotland.
  80. Web site: The Lovers . 2024-02-20 . National Library of Scotland.
  81. Web site: Film: The Lovers . 2024-02-17 . British Council.
  82. Web site: Swung (2015) . 17 February 2024 . Letterboxed.
  83. Web site: None of the Above (2018) . 2024-02-17 . Siri Rødnes . en-US.

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