Abbie Spallen

Abbie Spallen is a Northern Irish actress and playwright, who was jointly awarded the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize in 2007. In 2016 she was awarded a Windham-Campbell Literature Prize, with the citation describing how her "plays confront audiences with all the awkward questions, reminding us with thrilling proof that theatre can still be urgently necessary". Her works have been compared to a variety of authors, including Gillian Greer, Brian Friel, David Ireland, Martin Lynch, Mark O'Rowe and Conor McPherson.

Early life Spallen grew up on a council estate in Newry, Northern Ireland. After finishing her A-Levels she went to art college, where she joined a group of New Age travellers. This was her second play and it had premiered in 2006. In 2009 she was awarded the Stewart Parker Trust New Playwright Bursary, also for Pumpgirl. In a 2015 review of her play Lally the Scut, Spallen was described by critic Helen Meaney as "a playwright of intellect and ambition".

In 2016 she was awarded a Windham-Campbell Literature Prize, with the citation describing how her "plays confront audiences with all the awkward questions, reminding us with thrilling proof that theatre can still be urgently necessary". The prize was $150,000. To research her play Sheep on Fire in Penal Australia, Spallen travelled to Norfolk Island. One act of the play was published in The Guardian in 2020. Heidemann refers to this as a "forgotten Other" - both the place itself, close to the border with the south of Ireland, and the people there, often working within a precarious economic reality. Comparison has been drawn between that work and The History of the Troubles by Martin Lynch and Cyprus Avenue by David Ireland, concluding that of the three Lynch's work is the most playful.

Personal life To supplement her income from writing, as of 2019, Spallen had a jewellery-making business via the Etsy e-commerce platform. Strandline (2009) Lally the Scut'' (2015)