Chris Neilan is Programme Leader and Lecturer in Screenwriting & Development at Edinburgh Napier University, UK. He is an award-winning writer and filmmaker with a PhD in creative writing from Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. His films have been selected for 30 international film festivals, and his widely-published fiction has been nominated, shortlisted, and longlisted for several international awards, winning 2nd place in the Bridport Prize in 2017. He is the author the screenwriting anti-handbook, Beyond the Monoplot (Bloomsbury, 2025) and the experimental novel, Stellify (2022). He has contributed to Little White Lies, Film International, Sight and Sound, and the Journal of Screenwriting.