Glasgow-born Mangan has lived and worked in various parts of Scotland and Ireland, and in France, where he now resides. He is a poet, cartoonist, playwright and journalist, having been resident playwright at Theatre Workshop in Edinburgh in the mid-1970s, and later poet-in-residence at Dundee College of Arts; he now writes and illustrates for the Times Literary Supplement and other journals. His collection Waiting for the Storm was published by Bloodaxe in 1990.