Janet Paisley was born in Ilford, England on January 12, 1948. She was a poet, novelist, playwright, and scriptwriter. She wrote six collections of poetry including Pegasus in Flight, Alien Crop, Reading the Bones, Ye Cannae Win, and Sang fur the Wandert. Her novels included White Rose Rebel and Warrior Daughter. Her first play, Refuge, won the Peggy Ramsay Award in 1996. Her other plays included Deep Rising, Winding String, straightjackets, Double Yella, and The Lassies, O. She wrote the script for the short film Long Haul and was a scriptwriter for the BBC TV series River City and the STV series High Road. She wrote in Scots and English and was a life-long activist for social justice and the Scots language. In 2017 she was inducted into the Scottish Traditional Music Hall of Fame, for Services to Scots. She died on November 9, 2018 at the age of 70.