Alan McLean is a writer and educator. He has published two volumes of poetry, Home Leave (1965) and Kangja La Journal (1999). His poem, The road to Tserko Ri, won first prize in the East Anglian Poetry Competition, 1997.

He is the author of several works of fiction, written mainly for younger readers. His novel, The ghost of the glen, has been translated into Spanish and Catalan and published by Editorial Bruņo, Barcelona, where it is now in its 15th printing.

Alan McLean has been associated with the Saffron Walden amateur drama scene for many years, both as an actor and as a director. In 1985 he wrote and directed Bread! for the Studio Theatre Group, a play about the Saffron Walden bread riots of 1785. A novel set in the same period, Rebels of the fields, was published by Anglia Young Books.

He is currently working on a series of readers for learners of English as a foreign language for Oxford University Press and teaching a course on the American novel for the University of the Third Age.