Billy Cowan lives in Manchester, UK, and has an M Phil(B) in Playwriting from Birmingham University. An award-winning playwright, winning two international playwriting competitions - the Writing Out Award for Best New Gay play organised by Finborough Theatre London for Smilin' Through, and Warehouse Theatre's International Playwriting competition for Transitions, which was later produced as Still Ill. Smilin' Through was co-produced in 2005 by Contact, Birmingham Rep and Queer Up North and nominated for Best New Play of the Year at the Manchester Evening News Theatre awards. His other plays include: Daddy (2004), Heart Is A Lonely Hunter (2004), Stigmata (2006), Care Takers (2009/10), The Right Ballerina (2012) and Still Ill (2014). He has also written for M6 Theatre Company, one of the country's leading Young People's theatre companies: Web Pal, It Should Have Been Me, and Glee & Glum. Billy also writes fiction. The first chapter of a new Young Adult novel, The Crow Lady, was a finalist at the 2015 Writing on the Wall Pulp Fiction competition, and his flash fiction is published by Arsenal Pulp Press. He teaches creative writing at Edge Hill University and regularly performs his flash fiction at Verbose in Manchester.