Fray: The haunting and mysterious new literary suspense novel of 2023, for fans of bestsellers THE LONEY and PINE

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And now I use running very deliberately to manage anxiety. So for instance, at the moment I’m doing book events, which has been wonderful and very exciting. But one thing that I knew before I was doing that all this stuff is I have to run in the morning, before I go, as a way of managing my anxiety in advance. Fray is set in the remote wilderness of the Scottish Highlands, and follows a nameless narrator as they desperately search for their missing father. Instead, they discover an abandoned cottage filled with thousands of confusing, terrifying scraps of paper, detailing the father’s frenzied attempts to find his dead wife. He had long wanted to write about his own mental health experiences but had always struggled to find a way to do this. The key moment came during a mountain run in a storm. But, and this is crucial, this book isn’t really about me – it’s about the mental health experiences we all face, and the ways we may struggle to understand or communicate these. I know running can be hard at first and it's a big commitment. But I think if, if at any point in our lives, we introduce some running to it, that's going to make things better. You could be 13 or you could be 65, it doesn't matter when you choose to do it. There's a wonderful community waiting to welcome you to parkrun or to clubs or whatever it might be. It's just there for any of us to to embrace at any point if you're physically able to. And I just think it's just the best. Finally, I have to ask, is it true that you wrote your novel on the bus to work?

We also have Wee Write to look forward to this summer. It takes place from 3 to 9 June, so watch out for full details of a host of fun family events and activities.”This is an exciting, intense book which explores the redemptive power of nature and the universal challenges we all face living with our own mental health. That combination of the wild, threatening weather and this abandoned building gave me the way into telling a story that is open and honest about mental health.” Aye Write is produced by Glasgow Life, the charity which delivers culture and sport to enhance mental, physical and economic wellbeing, and is funded by The National Lottery through Creative Scotland. Fray is a book about family, love, and overcoming grief, set against the beauty and the threat of the Scottish Highland wilderness,” he says.

At its heart, Fray is a book about love and self-acceptance, while also taking the reader on a wild adventure through the Scottish Highlands.” Carse Wilson is a passionate advocate for mental health awareness who was diagnosed as autistic as an adult. He wrote Fray over several years in 15-minute bursts on the bus to and from work. Breathing in enough to be given life, softening the pain a little, finding some colour in all the grinding grey. Remembering that something else was possible, that it could change. That was all I could hold on to, never daring to consider that it actually would change. That I would. Aye Write will also look ahead to exciting debut talent in its ‘Ones To Watch’ events. These will shine the spotlight on writers including Ryan Love, Lynsey May, Denise Saul, Mark Pajak, Chris Carse Wilson, and Wiz Wharton.More than 120 events will showcase a broad range of both established and emerging writing talent. These will feature lively discussion and debate involving 175 authors from Scotland and around the world. The diagnosis has been an incredible moment, although I’m still learning and coming to terms with it. My understanding of it is that it is about a son experiencing guilt followed closely by depression, after losing his parents, because he realises that he never really knew them. In particular his father, who is senses is geographically close by, yet more distant than ever. HarperNorth has pre-empted the “spine-tingling” début novel by Chris Carse Wilson, communications manager at V&A Dundee. The narrator is driven to their wit’s end trying to puzzle all this out. Along the way, they talk about the darkness that has clouded their life at times, and the ways they’ve tried to cope. Running is one thing that helped, a way to keep moving, to hang on:

A range of current topics and cultural themes underpins the extensive programme, with content focusing on subjects as diverse as the cost-of-living crisis, the war in Ukraine, health and wellbeing, the environment and climate crisis, today’s political environment in the UK, sport, and the criminal justice system. Apparently written in 20-minute bursts on the bus to his job as Communications Manager of V&A Dundee, and hidden from his wife until it was completed, Chris Carse Wilson’s debut novel is an intense study of grief and obsession, following two people who try to come to terms with bereavement by pushing themselves mentally and physically to their limits.

Emotional response

Creative Scotland Head of Literature and Publishing, Alan Bett, said: “Aye Write once more brings a strong and diverse list of writers to Glasgow. Alongside the many recognised names, book festivals also play a key role in introducing new writers to the reading public.

Fray begins with its anonymous narrator arriving at a cottage in the Scottish Highlands. The narrator’s mother died some time ago, and shortly afterwards their father disappeared, apparently unable to accept what had happened. The narrator has now traced their father to this cottage – he’s not there himself, but the place is full of papers and maps written and drawn by his hand. The novel chronicles its narrator’s attempt to piece together these texts and, hopefully, find a clue to their father’s whereabouts. Some of the most familiar names included in the extensive, varied line-up of writers at Aye Write this year are Alistair Campbell, Ruby Wax, Val McDermid, Liz Lochhead, Janey Godley, Cameron McNeish, Josie Long in conversation with Frankie Boyle, Robin Ince, Aasmah Mir, Chris Brookmyre, Darren McGarvey, Polly Toynbee, and Sally Magnusson. The novel, set in the remote wilderness of the Scottish Highlands, is due for publication in April and is being billed as the “most haunting and mysterious debut novel of 2023”. My running and writing kind of have always existed in parallel to each other. I've been running for 30 years, I've been writing for 30 years. And I've always used both of them in different but complementary ways to manage my mental health – to manage challenges that I have with anxiety, all of which is linked to being autistic, which is not something I knew about until a year or two ago. You've said that being out in nature, running outside, is very important to you

Grief and obsession

If that wasn’t exciting enough, we’ve also a series of excellent Aye Write Pop Up Events planned. In the run-up to the festival, on 25 April, we’ve Elizabeth Day lined up and in the coming months our Pop Up Events will feature names including former Booker Prize winner Eleanor Catton, Ambrose Parry, Rob Rinder and Michael Palin. Foregrounding atmosphere and psychological suspense for most of its length, Fray is a literary novel that probes the most sensitive recesses of its characters’ minds in a build-up to a charged and hallucinatory final act. An eerie and immersive depiction of the difficult process of grieving, it marks the emergence of a powerful new writer.