{{short description|Scottish playwright, radio producer}} {{Use dmy dates|date=November 2016}} {{Use British English|date=November 2016}} {{Infobox person | name = Jessie Kesson | image = | imagesize = | caption = | othername = | birth_name = Jessie Grant McDonald | birth_date = 28 October 1916 | birth_place = Inverness, Scotland | death_date = {{death date and age|26 September 1994|28 October 1916|df=y}} | death_place = | burial_place = | alma_mater = | occupation = Playwright, radio producer }} '''Jessie Kesson''' (28 October 1916 – 26 September 1994), born Jessie Grant McDonald, was a Scottish novelist, playwright and radio producer.
==Life==
She was born in a workhouse in Inverness, to a mother who had turned to prostitution after being disowned by her family, and brought up in Elgin until the age of eight.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/14790302.Celebrating_the_life_and_work_of_Jessie_Kesson/|title=Celebrating the life and work of Jessie Kesson|first=Dani |last=Garavelli|website=HeraldScotland|language=en|date=8 October 2016|access-date=2018-02-13}}</ref> She was then taken from her mother and placed in an orphanage at Skene, Aberdeenshire. In her circumstances, she was not permitted to enter further education and had to go into domestic service.<ref>{{cite web|last=Murray|first=Isobel|title=Writing Her Self|url=http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/ScotLit/ASLS/Laverock-Jessie_Kesson.html|accessdate=2007-09-17|archive-date=16 March 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080316074947/http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/ScotLit/ASLS/Laverock-Jessie_Kesson.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>
While in domestic service she suffered a breakdown and was admitted to the Royal Cornhill Hospital in Aberdeen for a year. After leaving the hospital she spent time living with an elderly woman on a croft in Abriachan. It was there in 1934, while roaming the hills, that she met and subsequently married Johnnie Kesson, a cattleman.<ref name=":0" /> She and her husband were farm workers in North East Scotland from 1939 to 1951; writing from this period illustrates her abiding love of nature and immersion in the changing seasons.<ref>''A Country Dweller's Years: Nature Writings By Jessie Kesson''. Edited with an Introduction by Isobel Murray. Kennedy & Boyd, 2009.</ref>
Encounters with Nan Shepherd and then Neil M. Gunn opened opportunities in writing, including plays for the BBC in Aberdeen.<ref>{{cite web|last=Campbell| first=Alistair| title =Jessie Kesson Novelist & Playwright 1916–1994 | url=http://www.slainte.org.uk/cilips/publications/scotauth/kessodsw.htm | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071207023153/http://www.slainte.org.uk/cilips/publications/scotauth/kessodsw.htm | url-status=usurped | archive-date=7 December 2007 |accessdate = 2007-09-17}}</ref>
She moved to London in 1947, where she lived for the rest of her life. As well as domestic work, she worked as a radio producer, producing ''Woman's Hour'' and more than 100 radio plays.
In 1984 and in 1988 she was awarded honorary doctorates from the University of Dundee and the University of Aberdeen and in 2009 Scotland's Creative Writing Centre, Moniack Mhor, established the Jessie Keeson Fellowship in honour of her life and work.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.nls.uk/exhibitions/treasures/jessie-kesson/writing|title=Writing career - Jessie Kesson - Treasures - National Library of Scotland|website=www.nls.uk|language=en|access-date=2018-02-13}}</ref>
==Works== Her writings include ''The White Bird Passes'' (1958), filmed for BBC Television in 1980 and adapted by Anne Downie for a 1988 Tron Theatre stage production,<ref>[http://archive.list.co.uk.s3-website.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/the-list/1988-05-27/21/index.html review of ''The White Bird Passes'' by Sarah Hemming], ''The List'', Issue 67, 27 May - 9 June, p. 19</ref> ''Glitter of Mica'' (1963), ''Another Time, Another Place'' (1983), which became an award-winning film, and ''Where the Apple Ripens'' (1985).
As well as writing novels, she also wrote more than 100 plays for radio over 45 years.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.nls.uk/news/press/2016/09/jessie-kesson-display|title=Jessie Kesson display - National Library of Scotland|website=www.nls.uk|language=en|access-date=2018-02-13|archive-date=14 February 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180214014644/https://www.nls.uk/news/press/2016/09/jessie-kesson-display|url-status=dead}}</ref>
In 2000, the first edition of Isobel Murray's authorised biography ''Jessie Kesson: Writing Her Life'', published by Canongate Books, won the National Library of Scotland/Saltire Research Book of the Year. The second edition, published by Kennedy & Boyd in 2011, revealed the truth about Kesson's ever-absent father.
==Reviews== * Donaldson, William (1980), review of ''The White Bird Passes'', in ''Cencrastus'' No. 4, Winter 1980–81, pp. 47 & 48, {{issn|0264-0856}} * Anderson, Carol (1983), ''Shining Corn: Glittering Mica'', which includes a review of ''Glittering Mica'', in Hearn, Sheila G. (ed.), ''Cencrastus'' No. 12, Spring 1983, pp. 40 & 41, {{issn|0264-0856}}
==References== {{Reflist}}
==Further reading== *Kesson, Jessie (1984), "Writer at Work", in Parker, Geoff (ed.), ''Cencrastus'' No. 19, Winter 1984, pp. 23 & 24, {{issn|0264-0856}} *Murray, Isobel (ed.) (1996), ''Scottish Writers Talking 1</i>, Tuckwell Press, {{isbn|9781898410782}}
==External links== * [https://web.archive.org/web/20070720055116/http://www.nls.uk/writestuff/kesson.html National Library of Scotland Modern Scottish Writers] * [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036606/ IMDB entry for Another Time, Another Place]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Kesson, Jessie}} Category:1916 births Category:1994 deaths Category:20th-century Scottish dramatists and playwrights Category:20th-century Scottish novelists Category:British women dramatists and playwrights Category:Proletarian literature Category:Scottish dramatists and playwrights Category:Scottish radio producers Category:Scottish Renaissance Category:British women radio producers Category:20th-century Scottish women novelists