Origins
RODGE GLASS was born in 1978 and is originally from Cheshire, though he has now been in Scotland since 1997, and since then most of his family have scattered all over the globe.  Rodge is the product of an Orthodox Jewish Primary School, an 11+ All Boys Grammar School, a Co-Ed Private School, a Monk-sponsored Catholic College, Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Strathclyde University and finally Glasgow University where he was tutored by James Kelman, Janice Galloway and Alasdair Gray, and began writing his first novel in 2002. 

No Fireworks
This novel became No Fireworks, a book about Jewish identity which revolved around confused protagonist Abraham Stone, a disguised worst case scenario of the author’s own life if it all went horribly wrong – three times divorced, alcoholic and lacking in anything to believe in. The book was published by Faber & Faber in July 2005 and was nominated for four awards, but won none of them.  These were The Authors’ Club first Book Award (UK), The Saltire First Book Award (Scotland), The Dylan Thomas Prize (Worldwide) and The Glen Dimplex First Novel Award (Ireland). The novel was re-published in paperback in August 2006.

Hope for Newborns
Rodge’s second novel, Hope for Newborns, is a tragic comedy set in a Manchester novelty barber shop about two young people who have seen enough of the world to realise they want nothing to do with it in its current form.  So they set up Hope for Newborns Plc, a fraudulent but successful internet charity.  It was published, again with Faber & Faber, in June 2008 and saw Glass reviewed for the first time in the major UK broadsheets, garnering positive reviews in The Guardian and The Independent, amongst others. The book was re-published in paperback in June 2009.

Alasdair Gray: A Secretary’s Biography
From 2002-2005 Rodge spent three years as personal assistant to Alasdair Gray before embarking on an unorthodox, messy book on his life and work. Rodge has known Alasdair for a decade now and has filled many roles in that time – student, secretary, signature forger, driver, researcher, advisor, tea maker and paper boy – here he attempted one more.  Alasdair Gray: A Secretary’s Biography was every bit as individual as its subject, and cheekily took Boswell’s infamous portrait of Samuel Johnson as its template.  Gray co-operated with the project throughout but it is entirely independent – the subject agreed not to read a word of the result until public release, and promised not to sue once he has seen it. He kept to this promise, though he did review the book in The Guardian under the headline ‘What My Biographer Got Wrong’.. The book was published by Bloomsbury in hardback in September 2008 and was Glass’s most successful book yet, being widely and positively reviewed and winning him the distinguished Somerset Maugham Award, as well as being nominated for The Scottish Arts Council Award for Non-Fiction. It was published in paperback by Bloomsbury in September 2009.

Academia
The Gray biography was also written as an academic Phd, under the title Working With Alasdair Gray. This was a similar version to the published one, but with added academic essays, extra footnotes, and minus the fart jokes. Rodge graduated in December 2008 and became Dr Glass.

Since September 2008 Rodge has been the Writer in Residence at Strathclyde University, where he was an undergraduate between 1997 and 2001. He has also been teaching Creative Writing on the Undergraduate course which is also taught by the novelist Louise Welsh, playwright Tim Fountain and poet David Kinloch.