Neil Nixon

Neil Nixon
Born	Workington, England
Occupation(s)	Author, journalist, academic

Neil Nixon (born Workington, England), is an author, journalist and academic. He has combined a career in education with writing books, articles, scripts and comedy material. Nixon’s published works include titles on the paranormal, popular music, football and two novels published under the name of Stanley Manly. In 1999 he founded the UK’s first full-time higher educational course in Professional Writing. Nixon’s scripts include material for television and radio. His radio play Mr Lennon, broadcast in 2001, was nominated for a Sony Radio Academy Award for Best Single Drama. The play imagines the life of John Lennon if The Beatles had failed to secure a record deal.

Nixon was a regular contributor to the Fortean Studies series of books produced by Fortean Times magazine, offering a series of papers exploring UFOlogy from the perspective of social science. In this regard Nixon's perspective in notably sympathetic, his paper in Fortean Studies Volume 6 being called They're Not all Lunatics on the Fringe examined the meaning and fulfillment experienced by members of UFO cults. His book UFOs contained a chapter called Astounding Tales citing four cases, including 1976 Tehran UFO incident as a challenge to all UFO scepticism.

Nixon's comedy and fiction writing has included material for most the UK's leading adult humour comics including Viz (comics), Gas (comics), Brain Damage (comics) and Poot! (comics) as well as journalism and two novels under the name of Stanley Manly. The first of these, Raiders of the Low Forehead (1999) formed part of the launch offer of Attack! Books, the Spank the Monkey website noting: "It's less of a novel than a series of sketches with the slightest of narrative threads holding them together: all short punchy chapters, full of crap puns, relentless internal rhymes and blatantly obvious storytelling. (After the book's 14th sex scene, Vince and Sharon discuss the meaning of the word "gratuitous".)" The subsequent Workington Dynamo (2008) follows a more formal novel structure, the 3AM Literary Review noting: "a hetero love story for a grrl as well as the soccer club, and his wimmin are a violent counter blast to the rich, thin tory-sucking anti-feminists that currently seem to think that fat poor people shouldn’t be allowed to live. Young Dougie Grimton is after his cousin Kerry and the result is a sweet but tangy element amidst the picaresque madness."

In 1999 Nixon led the developments for the UK’s first full-time higher education course in Professional Writing, a programme he continues to lead.

Selected Bibliography

Stanley Manly

• Manly, Stanley (1999). Raiders of the low-forehead. London: Attack!. ISBN 9781840680317.
• Manly, Stanley (14 February 2008). Workington Dynamo. Lulu.com. ISBN 9781435700444.

Neil Nixon

• Nixon, Neil (29 June 1997). UFOs and Other Close Encounters. Ladybird Books. ISBN 9780721497105.
• Nixon, Neil (1 March 2002). UFOs. Pocket Essentials. ISBN 9781903047880.
• Nixon, Neil (July 2006). Singin' the Blues. Hayloft Publishing. ISBN 9781904524366.
• Nixon, Neil (5 September 2013). Successful Studying. New Generation Publishing. ISBN 9781907502132.
• Nixon, Neil (18 December 2013). How to Get a Break as a Writer. Troubador Publishing. ISBN 9781848765641.

External links

• Official website