Carse writes the narrator as being uncomfortable, inexperienced and unknowledgable about the wilds of the Highlands. Its either that, which I prefer to believe, or Carse himself is. To the narrator, the mountains are threatening rather than alluring. He mistakenly states that he is in a place no mountaineers tred, as there are no such places. 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. The diagnosis has been an incredible moment, although I’m still learning and coming to terms with it. 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.

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.

Grief and obsession

I'd been wrestling with how to honestly write about mental health and that moment of feeling so helpless and vulnerable against the landscape, against the weather – that was the spark. I knew this was my setting. This intensity that I'm feeling in this moment of panic trying to get down off the side of the mountain safely, is the same experience that I want a reader to have reading the book. Of course they are safe and dry and experiencing it at home, but I want them to have a sense of how it feels to be out on a run in that sort of situation – and sort of bring them along with that. 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. 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. 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.

An unnamed narrator arrives at an isolated cottage in a remote part of the Scottish Highlands, tracing the last known movements of his father, not long after the death of his mother. The papers are haphazard and don’t make a great deal of sense. The narrator’s father talks of searching for his wife, but also mentions the Devil. He records times and weather conditions precisely, then describes experiments whose purpose is unclear. One of his hand-drawn maps has the word ‘hotel’ marked prominently, but there doesn’t seem to be a hotel nearby. Perhaps the father has made some sort of breakthrough, but if so, its nature is inscrutable. 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.” 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. 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.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. 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. I’m not sure what this book wanted to be. A character analysis of the narrator? If so, it leads to zero conclusions and is simply boring. A written equivalent of a David Lynch movie? If so, one bizarre scene at the end does not a David Lynch movie make.