John Alan Scott

John Alan Scott (who has published under the names John A. Scott and John Scott) (born 23 April 1948) is an English-Australian poet, novelist and academic.

Biography Scott was born in Littlehampton in Sussex, England, migrating to Australia during his childhood and residing mainly in Melbourne since 1959. He attended Monash University, where he was a contemporary of fellow poets Alan Wearne and Laurie Duggan.

A former freelance scriptwriter for radio and television, working on such shows as The Aunty Jack Show (1974), It's Magic (1974) and The Garry McDonald Show (1977).

He first became known in the literary world as a poet. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, his work developed in an 'experimental' direction unusual in Australian poetry, owing partly to his interest in translation. In 1985 he was one of Four Australian Poets group that toured the US and Canada reading poetry. His work has won him the Victorian Premier's Award twice, in 1986 and again in 1994. The novel, What I Have Written, has been filmed from his own screenplay and he has been translated into French, German and Slovenian.

He has taught in the Faculty of Creative Arts at Wollongong University but now writes full-time.

Awards 1984: Newcastle Poetry Prize for St. Clair 1986: C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry for St. Clair 1994: Victorian Premier's Literary Award for What I Have Written 2013: Peter Porter Poetry Prize for "Four Sonnets"