Aye Write 2023: Michael Pedersen and Tanya Frank, Memoirs of Love and Humanity

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Aye Write 2023: Michael Pedersen and Tanya Frank, Memoirs of Love and Humanity

Thursday, 25 May, 2023, 7.45 p.m. – 8.45 p.m.

Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, 2 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow G2 3NY

In 2018 poet and author Michael Pedersen lost a cherished friend, Scott Hutchison, soon after their collective voyage into the landscape of the Scottish Highlands. Just weeks later, Michael began to write to him. In Boy Friends he confronts the bewildering process of grief, what starts as a love letter to one magical, coruscating human soon becomes a paean to all the gorgeous male friendships that have transformed his life.

Tanya Franks’ son Zach was nineteen when she discovered him rerouting the wires of their landline, sure that the phone was bugged, that his friends were Mafia, that the helicopters swirling above were deployed by spies, that he couldn’t trust anyone – her included. That moment upturned and unmoored everything. It would strand them both in a profound and terrifying isolation the way that perhaps only a psychotic break – or loving someone who is experiencing one – can.

Zig-Zag Boy is a journey along the tough frontiers of love and madness. As Tanya fights for answers and understanding – coming up against broken healthcare systems in the UK and the US – she is forced to question whether there were warning signs she missed, whether Zach will be able to have a normal life, and what ‘normal’ really means.

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