Norman Bissell became principal teacher of history at Braidhurst High School in Motherwell after obtaining an MA (Honours) degree in philosophy and history from the University of Glasgow. He was formerly a member of the Scottish Examination Board history panel and until recently an Area Officer of the Educational Institute of Scotland. His first poetry collection Slate, Sea and Sky features poems written in his native Glasgow and on the Isle of Luing in Argyll, where he now lives. His interest in the need for radical cultural renewal prompted him to found and lead the Open World Poetics group from 1989 until 1999 and to become director of the Scottish Centre for Geopoetics from 2002 until the present.