Sean Martin

Seán Martin is the author of the bestselling The Knights Templar: The History and Myths of the Legendary Military Order (2nd edition, 2009), and has appeared in a number of Templar-related TV programmes, including The Trial of the Knights Templar (Channel 5) and The Templars' Lost Treasure (National Geographic).

His other books include The Gnostics: The First Christian Heretics (2nd edition, 2010), The Cathars: The Rise and Fall of the Great Heresy (2nd edition, 2014), Andrei Tarkovsky (2nd edition, 2011), a study of the great Russian director, and A Short History of Disease (2015).

Seán won the 2011 Wigtown Poetry Prize, and was shortlisted for the 2013 Plough Prize, the 2017 Poetry Business Book & Pamphlet Competition, and the 2017 Wells Festival of Literature Poetry Competition. His first pamphlet of poems, The Girl Who Got onto the Ferry in Citizen Kane, is published by Templar Poetry (2018). The collection is the winner of a Templar Portfolio Award.

Seán lives in Edinburgh, where he recently completed a PhD in filmmaking on the Scottish fantasy author David Lindsay, author of the classic A Voyage to Arcturus. As a filmmaker, he co-directed the documentary Lanterna Magicka: Bill Douglas and the Secret History of Cinema (2009, released on DVD by the BFI), and the short film A Boat Retold, featuring writers Robert Macfarlane and Ian Stephen (2013).