Mhairi Collie and Gavin Francis

We're excited to host medical professionals and writers Mhairi Collie and Gavin Francis, who will be speaking about the incredible resilience of our bodies and minds. Collie’s novel, ‘The Bright Fabric of Life’ (Birlinn, 2025), follows the lives of two women – one British, one Ethiopian – whose lives converge after a devastating childbirth, creating a tender story of suffering, connection and hope. In his nonfiction book, ‘The Unfragile Mind’ (Wellcome, 2026), Francis draws on thirty years of medical practice to examine psychiatry, mental-health labelling, trauma, anxiety and addiction. Together, these acclaimed experts will explore how their experience as doctors have deepened their understanding of human connection, healing and shared compassion.

This event is sponsored by Edinburgh’s Centre for Theology and Public Issues (CTPI).

Mhairi Collie OBE is a consultant surgeon in Edinburgh. Since 2001 she has regularly undertaken surgery in sub-Saharan Africa to treat women with childbirth injuries. She initially worked for Médecins sans Frontières, then co-founded the charity Uganda Childbirth Injury Fund. ‘The Bright Fabric of Life’ (Birlinn, 2025) is her debut novel, published with support from global best-selling writer Alexander McCall Smith.

Gavin Francis is a GP and writer who works between Edinburgh and the Scottish Hebrides.  He is the author of eleven books that explore travel and the connections and synergies between medicine and culture. His latest, ‘The Unfragile Mind’ (Wellcome, 2026), surveys the landscape of modern mental health care and argues for greater humility, curiosity, compassion and hope in how we approach problems of the mind.

Jeremy Carrette is Head of the School of Divinity and Professor of Philosophy, Religion and Culture at the University of Edinburgh. He has published extensively on Michel Foucault, including ‘Michel Foucault and Religion’ (Routledge, 2000) and, with James Bernauer, ‘Michel Foucault and Theology’ (Ashgate, 2004). He has also published widely on William James, including editing, with Eugene Taylor, the centenary edition of ‘The Varieties of Religious Experience’ (Routledge, 2002). His present work includes a study of William James’s pragmatic theory of love, a 20th anniversary edition of his study with Richard King, ‘Selling Spirituality’ (Routledge, 2005), and a project on William Temple, Anglicanism and the environment.