Having started his career as a playwright, Michael MacLennan's first play Beat The Sunset garnered Vancouver's Jessie Richardson Award for outstanding new play, and the Theatrum National Playwriting Award. Grace won the Theatre BC National Playwriting Competition. His next two plays The Shooting Stage and Last Romantics both won the Voaden Prize and were Governor General's Award nominees. His commissioned play Life After God was adapted from the short story by Douglas Coupland and was followed by his sixth published play, The Good Egg. He has also written two operas with one of Canada’s most respected composers, Jeffrey Ryan. His plays have been performed across North America and translated into European productions.

As a screenwriter, MacLennan has been nominated seven times for the WGC’s Canadian Screenwriting Award. A producer of over 200 episodes, he began his screenwriting career as Writer and Story Editor for two seasons of CBC'S Wind At My Back before being head writer for PBS’s Anne of Green Gables series, then show-running the BBC/TV series Super Rupert. He was Co-Executive Producer on Showtime/Showcase's Queer As Folk, writing 14 episodes over four seasons, the most of any writer. He then co-created, executive produced, and show-ran City TV's flagship dramatic series Godiva's. American pilots have included The Healer and Four Corners for CBS, and The Box and Afterwives (with bestselling author Jennifer Weiner) for ABC. With Douglas Coupland, he co-created and produced the CBC series jPod. Other scripts include The Guard and Being Erica, on which he served as Consulting Producer. He was Consulting Producer of the CBS/CTV series Flashpoint. He then co-created, Executive Produced, and show-ran the hit series Bomb Girls, twice nominated for best series Canadian Screen Award, and honoured as Outstanding Dramatic Series by America’s Gracie Awards. Most recently, he was Co-Executive Producer on Space’s top-rated series, Bitten.

Current feature projects include Still Life With June for Amaze Film, the comedy Ashore (recipient of the Telefilm Premiere Writers Program), and the thriller Envoy with Flimshow Inc. He is also adapting Douglas Coupland’s novel Hey Nostradamus! with Random Bench and the acclaimed British director Peter Webber.

Born in Vancouver, he divides his time between Toronto, Los Angeles and Vancouver.