Allan Stratton is an award winning, internationally published and produced playwright and novelist.

His professional arts career began while he was still in high school, when James Reaney published his play "The Rusting Heart" in the respected literary magazine "Alphabet". It was broadcast on C.B.C. radio in 1970.

The focus of his early work, however, was acting. While working on an Honours degree in English at Victoria College, University of Toronto (`73), he performed with the Stratford Festival and the Huron Country Playhouse. After completing his M.A. at The Graduate Centre for the Study of Drama, U. of T. ('74), he appeared with regional theatres across the country, originating a range of roles in new work by playwrights such as James Reaney, Rex Deverell and Sharon Pollock.

Throughout this period, he continued to write, and in 1977 his first professional stage play, 72 Under the 0, was produced at The Vancouver Playhouse by Christopher Newton. A few years later, he turned to writing fulltime, thanks to the success of Nurse Jane Goes to Hawaii, a play that has had over three hundred productions internationally. Rexy!, a satire about Mackenzie King, was premiered in the winter of 1981. It likewise played across the country, and won the Chalmers Award, the Canadian Authors' Association Award, and the Dora Mavor Moore Award, all for Best New Play.

In 1982, he moved to New York, where he was a member of the Playwright/Director Unit of Lee Strasbergs' The Actors' Studio, chaired by film legend Arthur Penn. While there, Christopher Newton commissioned him to write an adaptation of the classic Labiche farce Célimare for the Shaw Festival Mainstage. The production went on to tour to The National Arts Centre, and was the first Shaw production aired on C.B.C. television. Papers, another of his plays with an international publication and production record, followed soon after. It premiered at the Tarragon Theatre, and won a Chalmers Award for Outstanding New Play, as well as being nominated for The Governor General's Award and the Dora Mavor Moore Award.

Allan returned to Canada in the late 1980s, and moved to Montréal, where he wrote the comedy-of-bad-manners Bag Babies, which opened at Theatre Passe Muraille in 1990. It was nominated for the Toronto Book Award and produced across Canada, as well as in the United States, Edinburgh and London (England). A few years later, he was commissioned to adapt Dracula for the Skylight Theatre. A female van Helsing, a comic look at Victorian mores, and a recreation of the novel's sweep distinguish this adaptation which was nominated for The Dora Mavor Moore Award for Best New Play, Large Theatre Division, 1995.

Other plays include The 101 Miracles of Hope Chance, premiered at the Manitoba Theatre Centre; Joggers, premiered at Toronto Free Theatre (now Canadianstage); A Flush of Tories, premiered at Prairie Theatre Exchange, and aired as a drama special on C.B.C. television; and the radio play When Father Passed Away.

In the mid 1990s, Allan headed the Drama Department at The Etobicoke School of the Arts, where he taught senior directing, acting and playwriting. His students won many awards, including three consecutive Best New Play Awards at the Sears Drama Festival provincial championships. However, classroom and administrative duties restricted his creative time and consequently he returned to fulltime writing, this time in the field of fiction.

In fall 2000, he released Leslie's Journal, a young adult novel about sexual abuse in adolescent dating relationships, published in Canada and the United States by Annick Press, and in foreign translation in Korea, Slovenia and Germany.

Leslie's Journal was selected for The American Library Association's "Best Books for Young Adults, 2002", "Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults, 2003" and "Best Reading List, 2003". Other citations include The Canadian Bookseller's "The Best of Canadian Young Adult: Gems of 2000", The Young Adult Learning Services Association (A.L.A.)'s "Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers 2001", The McNally Robinson Booksellers' "Our Choice 2001", and The Canadian Children's Book Centre's "Best Books for Young Adults".

Allan's next novel was the internationally acclaimed bestseller Chanda's Secrets. Set against the HIV/AIDS pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa, this adult/young adult crossover novel is being published and distributed to countries including the United States, Great Britain, South Africa, India, Germany, France, Japan, China, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Hong Kong, Slovenia, Vietnam, the Netherlands, Korea, and the African francophonie. It is has won the American Library Association's Michael L. Printz Honor Book for Excellence in Young Adult Litereature, the African Studies Association's Children's Africana Book Award for Best Book for the Older Reader, and a host of other best book awards, citations and nominations in Canada, the United States and Europe. It is currently optioned for a German/South African/Canadian film co-production.

Allan's followup, the stand-alone sequel Chanda's Wars, was been published to acclaim by HarperCollins in the U.S. and Canada (March 2008), and by Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag in Germany. It was chosen for the American Junior Library Guild's Book of the Month Club. French rights have been bought by Bayard Jeunesse; other publications are in the works. Fall 2008, a new and updated edition of Leslie's Journal was published in Canada, the United States and Germany, that incorporates Internet blackmail and cyber stalking into its narrative structure. Allan is currently working on his next novel for HarperCollins, Borderline.

Aside from his novels and plays, Allan has written for international events, including the evenings for Stephen Sondheim, Robert Rauschenberg and Guy Laliberté at The Harbourfront Centre World Leaders' Festival, Toronto. He also maintains an active public speaking and theatre adjudication schedule. In private life, he enjoys reading, weightlifting, and travel; his interests have taken him to Africa, Asia, the Middle East, the Caribbean and throughout Europe and North America. For several years, he volunteered at a Manhattan soup kitchen, and has undergone Santerian purification rituals, witnessed an exorcism in Botswana, and slept between rail cars behind the former Iron Curtain.

His work is published internationally by HarperCollins, Penguin Books, Samuel French, The Riverbank Press, Annick Press, Deutscher Taschenburg Verlag, Allen and Unwin, The Chicken House, Bayard Jeunesse, Asunaro Shobo, Hsiao Lu Publishing, Random House: Joong Ang, Zalozba Mis, Van Goor, Thuong Huyen Books, Hangilsa Publishing Company, Coach House Press, and Playwrights Canada, and has been anthologized by a number of others. He lives in Toronto with his partner, two cats and any number of fish.