The Hay 30 – Katherine RUNDELL

Experience an exceptional reading aloud session, in Dutch, English and Danish, when two of Europe’s best young authors read from their own stories written for the anthology Quest. An illustrator will draw live on stage. The stories are: Piva is a Tone-Deaf Cat by Anna Woltz (The Netherlands) and Beware Low-Flying Girls by Katherine Rundell (UK).

Both are available on the Gyldendals Danskportal

In Danish, Dutch and English

Moderator: Jesper Kirkegaard
Illustrator: Mette-Kirstine Bak

In May 2016, Fort McMurray, Alberta, the hub of Canada’s oil industry, was overrun by wildfire. It was a multi-billion-dollar disaster that drove 88,000 people from their homes. Canadian writer and journalist John Vaillant talks to author Katherine Rundell about how we must prepare for a hotter, more flammable world. In Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World (winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction 2023) Vaillant delves into the intertwined histories of the oil industry and climate science, the unprecedented devastation wrought by modern wildfires and the lives forever changed by these disasters. John Vaillant is a best-selling author and freelance writer whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, National Geographic, and the Guardian, among others. As well as the Baillie Gifford Prize, Fire Weather also won Canada's Shaughnessy Cohen Prize, and was a finalist the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. A #1 bestseller in Canada, Fire Weather was also named one of the ten best books of 2023 by The New York Times, among many other prominent publications in Europe and North America.

Ever wonder how award-winning books make their way from the author’s mind into your hands? In this new salon series, the British Book Awards (aka the Nibbies) bring you shortlisted authors from the 2024 awards in conversation with members of their publishing teams, shedding a light on all that goes into the creation of your favourite titles. Join The Bookseller’s programme director Miriam Robinson as she explores the publishing process with Katherine Rundell and her creative collaborators.

Rundell’s bestselling novels for children include Rooftoppers, The Explorer and The Good Thieves. She has won the Costa Children’s Book Award, the Blue Peter Book Award and the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, among many others. Her The Golden Mole and Other Living Treasure was shortlisted for 2022 Waterstones Book of the Year.

Join these two brilliant writers as they discuss their titles The Girl Savage and The Explorer, and Kat Wolfe Investigates and The Snow Angel and the influence that their childhoods growing up in Zimbabwe had on their writing. Chaired by Georgina Godwin.

Two writers talk about their stories included in the anthology Quest. They will share with the audience the inspiration for their tales, and discuss the central themes. The stories are: Beware Low-Flying Girls by Katherine Rundell (UK) and The Roof by Nataly E. Savina (Germany).

Both are available on Gyldendal’s Danskportal

In English and Danish

A swift flies two million kilometres in its lifetime. That’s far enough to get to the moon and back twice over – and then once more to the moon. A giraffe was once given to the King of France; she marched through the streets, dressed in the finest couture raincoat Paris could produce. A pangolin’s tongue is longer than its body. It keeps it neatly furled in a pouch near the hip.

Each of these animals is extraordinary. And each of them may soon disappear from the Earth. A lavishly illustrated collection of the lives of some of our astounding animals, this is a chance to be awestruck and lovestruck – to reckon with the beauty of the world, its fragility, and its strangeness.

Rundell’s books include Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne, and Why You Should Read Children's Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise.

In conversation with broadcaster and writer Francine Stock

A swift flies two million kilometres in its lifetime. That’s far enough to get to the moon and back twice over – and then once more to the moon. A giraffe was once given to the King of France; she marched through the streets, dressed in the finest couture raincoat Paris could produce. A pangolin’s tongue is longer than its body. It keeps it neatly furled in a pouch near the hip.

Each of these animals is extraordinary. And each of them may soon disappear from the Earth. A lavishly illustrated collection of the lives of some of our astounding animals, this is a chance to be awestruck and lovestruck – to reckon with the beauty of the world, its fragility, and its strangeness.

Rundell’s books include Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne, and Why You Should Read Children's Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise.

Katherine Rundell is in conversation with the novelist, poet and playwright Owen Sheers.

Katherine Rundell discusses her two most recent titles: The Good Thieves, the story of a group of children who will do anything to right a wrong, and Into the Jungle, a collection of beautifully imagined stories about the origins of the animals in Rudyard Kipling’s classic Just So Stories.

There’s a place where all the strangest stories began… Prepare to be swept away to a land beyond your wildest imagination by master storyteller Katherine Rundell (The Explorer) as she unveils her epic new fantasy series Impossible Creatures.

Follow Christopher, Mal and a baby griffin on their urgent quest across the wild splendour of the Archipelago, a secret place in our world where all the creatures of myth still live and thrive. Discover dragons small enough to perch on your thumb, winged horses, gold-horned hares that salute the brave, and chaotic green talking squirrels. Imagine pitting your wits against sphinxes, swooping out over the sea in a flying coat – and uncover the secret at the heart of the islands that threatens the creatures’ survival, and the world itself.

Wolves are the stuff of children’s fiction. Join award-winning illustrator William Grill and author Katherine Rundell as they discuss their respective books and the enduring fictional appeal of wolves. The Wolves of Currumpaw is the winner of the 2017 Bolognaragazzi Non-Fiction Award. Chaired by Jonathan Douglas, director of National Literacy Trust