Carys Bray
Short-story writer, Novelist
About
Carys Bray is a novelist and short-story writer. Her first novel, A Song for Issy Bradley (Hutchinson, 2014), was shortlisted for several prizes including the Desmond Elliott prize and Costa First Novel award. It won the Authors’ Club Best First Novel award and was serialised on BBC Radio Four’s Book at Bedtime. Her other novels are The Museum of You (Hutchinson, 2016) and When the Lights Go Out (Hutchinson, 2020), a Times paperback of 2021. Her short fiction has been published in a variety of magazines and journals. Six stories have been broadcast on BBC radio and her collection Sweet Home (Windmill Books, 2016) won the Scott prize.
Carys studied with the Open University as a mature student, achieving a BA in English Literature before attending Edge Hill University where she completed an MA and PhD in Creative Writing. Between writing projects, she works as a lecturer on undergraduate and postgraduate Creative Writing courses. She also teaches for the Arvon Foundation and enjoys mentoring emerging writers and running workshops in the community.
Having recently completed a new collection, Carys is drafting a fourth novel. Her work is informed by her experience as a carer and by her Mormon upbringing which sparked an interest in secular and religious apocalypse, and the comforts and constraints of community. In 2023 Carys was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. She lives in Southport and is fortunate to have a garden where she grows a variety of vegetables, some of which are edible.