Hay Festival 2018

The so-called culture wars seem to be everywhere we turn, covering racism, sexism, the Middle East and more. Vital debates are quickly drowned out by denunciations of ‘wokism’, ‘cancelling’ and ‘no-platforming’ on the one side and on the other charges of censorship and denial of free speech.

Renowned philosopher AC Grayling takes a look at the incendiary debate around culture, and argues that conflict arises not between competing rights but between interests and rights. This timely and important discussion offers nuance and consideration to one of the biggest issues changing the state of our public culture.

Grayling is founder and principal of the New College of the Humanities at Northeastern University, London, and its Professor of Philosophy.

When lockdown led busy professional Chloe Dalton to leave the city and return to the countryside of her childhood, the last thing she expected was to be the custodian of a newly born hare. In this heartwarming and life-affirming event, she talks to politician William Hague about finding the creature, alone and no bigger than her palm, and choosing to nurse it and give it a chance at survival.

Dalton is a writer, political adviser and foreign policy specialist. She spent over a decade working in the UK Parliament and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Raising Hare chronicles Dalton’s journey with the hare, from caring for it as a baby to preparing for its return to the wild.

Awarded for the best published literary work in the English language, written by an author aged 39 or under, the Dylan Thomas Prize celebrates the international world of fiction in all its forms. On the Prize’s 20th anniversary, join us to celebrate the 2025 winner in conversation with Elaine Canning, writer and Dylan Thomas Prize Director.

The longlist for the Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize 2025 is: Mosab Abu Toha, Forest of Noise; Emma Glass, Mrs Jekyll; Jo Hamya, The Hypocrite; Seán Hewitt, Rapture’s Road; Ferdia Lennon, Glorious Exploits Andrew McMillan, Pity; Lottie Mills, Monstrum; Ruthvika Rao, The Fertile Earth; Yael van der Wouden, The Safekeep; Rebecca Watson, I Will Crash; Eley Williams, Moderate to Poor, Occasionally Good; and Yasmin Zaher, The Coin.

Explore the rich national story of Wales and its dynamic relationship with the English borderlands. From medieval conflicts to modern-day connections, this panel delves into the people, places and politics that define Wales and its borders.

Connor Allen is a multidisciplinary artist, former Children’s Laureate of Wales and associate artist of The Riverfront in Newport. Hanan Issa is a writer, poet and artist, as well as co-founder of the Where I’m Coming From open mic collective. She is the current National Poet of Wales. Gwyneth Lewis is a former National Poet of Wales and wrote the words on the front of the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff. Mike Parker is author of On the Red Hill, an evocation of the queer rural, winner of Wales Non-fiction Book of the Year 2020. Bedwyr Williams is a Welsh artist, currently working on an artwork commission for National Trust Cymru.

They celebrate the breadth of Welsh identity through storytelling and poetry, and explore its shared heritage with England.

Join us for an afternoon with the much-loved Dame Jacqueline Wilson. Discover how she started her writing career, how she created some of her best-loved characters including Tracy Beaker and Hetty Feather, and hear all about her new book, a funny, heartwarming story returning to the world of Daisy and Lily.

Daisy and her sister are excited about going on holiday. But Lily uses a wheelchair, which can make trips to the seaside tricky. Especially with all that sand! Will Daisy, Lily and their neighbour’s dog Scruff get their ice cream-filled dream holiday and maybe even have a Seaside Sleepover?

Please note: there will be no book signing after this event but printed bookplates will be available from the Festival Bookshop.

Are you sitting comfortably? Then he’ll begin… Settle in for a thrilling adventure from long ago, brimming with monsters, madness and gruesome humour, told by the Festival’s favourite storyteller Daniel Morden. Conall was once a hero of the people, but he has left behind his thieving ways – until three strangers come to his door and he reluctantly agrees to One Last Job, with predictably disastrous results! One part Homer’s Odyssey, one part anxiety dream, The Thief’s Tale is proof of the power of a great tale well told.

In this arts-based workshop you’ll create a self-portrait, or a portrait of somebody or something else that you love, using DIY print-making processes, recycled materials and mixed media.

University of Worcester staff and students from the Department of Illustration and the International Centre for the Picture Book in Society (ICPBS) return to Hay Festival with their engaging workshops to inspire young creatives. All materials and equipment provided – just bring your imagination!

This session is tailored for neurodivergent children.

Take joy in and celebrate the fascinating, moving and sometimes astonishing ways animals have enriched our lives, in this event with actor Martin Clunes.

Inspired by his own adoption of a former guide dog, Clunes’ book Meetings With Remarkable Animals tells the stories of animals that help humans, from search and rescue dogs and therapy horses to mine-sniffing rats and life-saving dolphins.

Clunes has been a familiar and much-loved face on our television screens since the 1990s. Alongside appearing in hit shows like Men Behaving Badly and Doc Martin, he has presented numerous documentaries from around the world including Lemurs of Madagascar, Islands of the Pacific and A Dog Called Laura.

Few contemporary authors are as adept as Jojo Moyes at combining intimate family stories with big emotions and topics, and her latest novel is no exception. Moyes introduces We All Live Here, a story of family and love that follows Lila Kennedy, who is dealing with a broken marriage, two wayward daughters, a house that is falling apart and an elderly stepfather who seems to have quietly moved in.

So when her real dad, who ran off to Hollywood 35 years before, turns up at her doorstep, it feels like the final straw. But Lila soon realises that even the family you thought you could never forgive might have something to teach you.

Moyes’ books include Me Before You, The One Plus One and The Giver of Stars.

Think you know the story of Pompeii? Think again, and join Gabriel Zuchtriegel – who is currently overseeing the biggest dig of the site of Pompeii in a generation – as he shares the new secrets of the city.

Zuchtriegel is Director General of the archaeological park in Pompeii. Drawing on astonishing discoveries made during the first excavation of a part of Pompeii, Zuchtriegel reveals in his new book The Buried City the untold human stories that are at last emerging from a city frozen in time, where there are unmade beds, captivating works of art and the signs of lives abruptly halted.

Sanam Mahloudji was born in Tehran and grew up in Los Angeles after leaving Iran during the Islamic Revolution. Her fiction has won a Pushcart Prize. She discusses her first novel with the Malaysian author of Five Star Billionaire, Tash Aw, winner of the Whitbread First Novel Award and twice longlisted for the Man Booker Prize.

A riotously funny and moving debut, The Persians follows five women from three generations of a once illustrious Iranian family as their lives are turned upside down. In Iran, they were somebodies. In America, they’re nobodies. Can they restore the family name to its former glory? And what does that mean in a country where they never mattered to anyone?

Award-winning director Kelly Reichardt (Meek’s Cutoff, Wendy and Lucy)’s First Cow is a gripping and glorious story of friendship and petty crime in the Old West.

A taciturn loner and skilled cook (John Magaro) has traveled west and joined a group of fur trappers in Oregon Territory, though he only finds true connection with a Chinese immigrant (Orion Lee) also seeking his fortune. Soon the two collaborate on a successful but precarious cake-making business, the longevity of which is reliant upon the clandestine participation of a wealthy landowner’s prized milking cow – the very first, and only, in the territory.

With this simple premise, Reichardt paints an authentic portrait of harsh frontier life in the early nineteenth century, depicting the immense, unsettling quietude of rural America and interrogating the very foundations on which the country was built.

“Pitch-perfect… A riveting, resonant, exquisite film” – The Telegraph

In this temptatious tasting event, two fantastic businesses local to Hay-on-Wye guide us through choice charcuterie and different styles of beer, while explaining how these delicious products are made with regenerative farming techniques.

Wild by Nature practises regenerative farming in the Black Mountains. The idea for the business was born when Jake Townley and his brother-in-law Ed Dickson left their jobs in the city and moved back to where they had grown up in the Welsh borders, with a shared desire to be closer to nature and to grow, cook and share the food from their farm.

Lucky Seven Brewery is an independent family brewery based in Hay-on-Wye, started in 2014 by Luke and Kelly Manifold. Brewing the beers that they love to drink, and exploring the flavours of different styles, they produce beers that highlight the quality of the ingredients.

Join award-winning author Elle McNicoll for a conversation to launch her new YA book, Wish You Were Her. Book Lovers meets You’ve Got Mail in this enemies-to-lovers romance. Elle will share her thoughts on diving into Young Adult fiction, cosy romance, experiencing fandom and normalising neurodiversity.

Elle’s debut novel A Kind of Spark won the Blue Peter Book Award, the Overall Waterstones Children’s Book Prize and Blackwell’s Book of 2020. She is twice Carnegie nominated, and was shortlisted for the Books Are My Bag Awards 2020, the Branford Boase Award and the Little Rebels Award.

In this arts-based workshop you’ll use collage and printmaking techniques to design a Sirens of Sustainability character to protect our rivers, waterways and oceans.

University of Worcester staff and students from the Department of Illustration and the International Centre for the Picture Book in Society (ICPBS) return to Hay Festival with their engaging workshops to inspire young creatives. All materials and equipment provided – just bring your imagination!

Renowned evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins guides us through The Genetic Book of the Dead, a groundbreaking exploration of the untapped potential of DNA to transform our understanding of evolution.

Dawkins explains how the body, behaviour and genes of every living creature can be read as a book – an archive of the worlds of its ancestors.

Dawkins is an eminent writer and thinker, author of The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker, and The God Delusion, among others. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and of the Royal Society of Literature.

The award-winning shows Jesse Armstrong has created and co-created are nothing short of iconic. Succession, the phenomenally popular HBO series following the internecine struggles of a family fighting their patriarch for control of a global media and entertainment conglomerate, is the latest in his string of lauded releases, from Peep Show and Fresh Meat to The Thick of It.

Armstrong is an Academy Award-nominated and BAFTA-winning TV and film writer. Join him for a look at his work: how he creates the sharpest satire in television today; what he thinks about the relationship between media organisations, news cycles and government; and stories from behind the scenes of some of his shows.

The architecture of Britain could look very different now if plans by modernists in the 1960s had been enacted: London’s iconic Piccadilly Circus and Covent Garden would have disappeared, while so too would more than half of the centres of cities including Liverpool and Glasgow. Yet by 1974 almost all these plans had been abandoned, in one of the most dramatic U-turns in British social history.

Historian Simon Jenkins explores the turbulent history of Britain’s built environment, discussing how the battles of the past live on today, in arguments over tall buildings, what should be preserved and what form new buildings should take. Jenkins’ A Short History of British Architecture: From Stonehenge to the Shard is a celebration of our national treasures, a lament of our failures – and a call to arms for our built landscape.

What can nature teach us about living together? Investigating eight symbiotic relationships trying to survive the climate and biodiversity crises, science communicator Sophie Pavelle explains why it has never been more vital for us to understand symbiosis.

She talks to Hay Festival’s sustainability director Andy Fryers about the interconnectedness between species and the relationships that underpin natural environments.

Pavelle worked for Beaver Trust and presented their award-winning documentary Beavers Without Borders. She is the author of Forget Me Not, winner of the People’s Book Prize for Non-Fiction.

From fussy child to professional gourmet, Jimi Famurewa tells the story of his life in food. Famurewa is a British-Nigerian broadcaster and food writer, the Evening Standard’s former restaurant critic. He is a regular guest judge on BBC One’s MasterChef and was a lead judge on Channel 4’s The Great Cookbook Challenge with Jamie Oliver.

In his memoir Picky – looking back over his childhood of vegetable refusal and Happy Meals after late-night football practice – food is never just food. It is freighted with upbringing, heritage and sense of self. It carries memories, it transports and it anchors.

With plenty of fast-food nostalgia and a unique perspective as one of the only people of colour to have been a restaurant critic for a major British newspaper,

Famurewa takes a warm look at a life built around food: what it can stand for, and why you should always pay attention to what someone is eating.

What do you think should lead the news, and why? Watch this live recording of The News Meeting podcast, as special guests go head-to-head with Observer journalists, battling to pitch the top story of the day. Come along, have your say and share the stories you think we should be talking about.

Giles Whittell will be sitting in the editor’s chair, and we’ll be announcing the reporters and guests who will be vying for the lead story in the lead up to the Festival.

Whittell is Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the Observer. Previously he was deputy editor and world affairs editor at Tortoise Media. He worked as a Times correspondent in LA, Moscow and Washington and along the way he’s written a few books including Bridge of Spies and a biography of snow.

Try out some wild, fermented natural ciders paired with one of the UK’s last true ‘farmhouse’ dairy cheeses in this exciting tasting event featuring two producers working in harmony with nature.

Lydia Crimp and Tom Tibbits of Artistraw are natural cider makers and small holders based just outside Hay-on-Wye, nestled in the wild Welsh Marches. Both passionate environmentalists, they are restoring ancient orchards and protecting old apple varieties. Their natural, unpasteurised cider contains no added sugar, water or sulphites, and is fermented spontaneously using the apples’ wild yeasts.

Appleby’s Cheese is produced at Hawkstone Abbey Farm, run on biodynamic principles with a focus on provenance and legacy. Each cloth-bound Cheshire encapsulates a moment in time – a product of the soil, grass pastures, the cows and the weather. To raw milk are added traditional cultures, rennet and salt from the Cheshire plains. These time capsules are then matured in old barns with Napoleonic timbers.

Join our celebrated pizzaioli for an entertaining, hands-on workshop that will teach you everything that you knead to know about how to make pizzas. Since nothing complements pizza quite like a perfect glass of wine, let us pair and enjoy Italian wine together with your pizza creations.

This 90-minute session includes snacks, a 12” pizza of your own creation and complementary wine throughout. Dairy-free and gluten-free options available.

Deborah Frances-White grew up in a cult, so she knows the value of freedom of speech, critical thinking and the ability to disagree while really fighting for change. And so, while she knows there are conversations it’s scary to have, she also knows that it’s scarier to not have these conversations.

Put hesitation aside and let Frances-White encourage you to ask difficult questions, really listen and know when to negotiate and when to resist. A comedian best known for her hit podcast and book The Guilty Feminist, she is also creator and producer of BBC Radio 4’s GrownUpLand.

With controversial weight-loss drugs gaining public attention, Dr David A Kessler’s illumination of the body weight struggle comes at a good moment. The promise – and peril – of weight-loss drugs is writ large, but where do we go from here? We know that diets don’t work, and yet we also know that excess weight starves us of years and quality of life.

Kessler, in Diet, Drugs and Dopamine, gives us the tools to unplug the brain’s addictive wiring and change our relationship with food. He cautions that drugs, on their own, pose serious risks and are not a universal solution. But with the understanding they foster of the brain-body feedback loop comes new possibilities for our health and freedom from a lifelong struggle.

The former FDA (Food and Drug Administration) commissioner served under presidents Joe Biden, George HW Bush and Bill Clinton. His previous book is The End of Overeating.

Chef, illustrator and writer Letitia Clark and food writer and broadcaster Diana Henry celebrate the versatility of colourful and aromatic ingredients in this tasting event full of enchanting flavours. Clark demonstrates some of her dishes while discussing them with Henry – and you can sample them for yourself!

Clark’s For the Love of Lemons weaves history, anecdotes and stories showcasing the unrivalled ability of lemons to bring the zing. Her vibrant Italian-inspired recipes include Lemony Burrata with Spring Vegetables & Pistachio Pesto, Creamy Lemon & Mascarpone Carbonara and Lemon Tiramisu.

Henry’s Crazy Water, Pickled Lemons delivers dishes from the Middle East, Mediterranean and North Africa that bring an intoxicating whiff of warmer climes to your table.

These bright-eyed assassins of the British countryside, part of the mustelid family, lead extraordinary lives: some in total seclusion, some in large, related groups. The zoologist and the science communicator discuss these fascinating small mammals.

Dr Jenny MacPherson is principal scientist for the Vincent Wildlife Trust. She has authored a book on mustelids for the New Naturalist Library and covers the animals’ physiology, daily lives and distribution, as well as their significance in UK history and folklore. VWT’s Chief Executive, Lucy Rogers leads the VWT team and drives the development and implementation of VWT's strategy to conserve threatened mammals through evidence-led conservation work. In conversation with journalist, writer and filmmaker, Nicola Cutcher.

Delve into the world of silence as poet Gillian Clarke discusses her poems themed around the voices that are heard when we’re quiet. The Silence, Clarke’s latest collection, began during lockdown, and her poems cover topics including her mother and childhood, the Great War and its aftermaths, and the rituals which make that world come into focus.

Clarke was National Poet of Wales from 2008 until 2016, awarded the Queen’s Gold medal for Poetry in 2010 and the Wilfred Owen Award in 2012. Her work has been on the GCSE and A Level exam syllabus for over 30 years, and she performs her poetry regularly for student audiences at Poetry Live.

In the small village of Alcarràs in Catalonia, the peach farmers of the Solé family spend every summer together picking fruit from their orchard. But when new plans arise to install solar panels and cut down trees, the members of this tight-knit group suddenly face eviction – and the loss of far more than their home.

Winner of the Golden Bear at Berlinale, the sophomore film from Carla Simón (Summer 1993) is a sun-dappled, deeply moving ensemble portrait of the countryside and a community’s unbreakable bonds.

“Superb… enthralling. Proof that fiction is sometimes the most powerful way to uncover the truth” – The Telegraph

Join Yeshi Jampa and Julie Kleeman from Oxford’s Taste Tibet for a culinary tour of the Himalayas – a chance to learn about a unique cuisine and culture. In this demo event, they’ll take us on a rolling tasting journey. Enjoy a welcome drink (non-alcoholic), two courses of Tibetan food and a dessert truffle. Please let us know of any dietary requirements when booking, though please note that dairy and gluten lie at the heart of Tibetan cuisine.

A seasoned nomad who grew up on the Tibetan plateau, Yeshi helps forge a greater understanding of Tibetan culture through his food. When he was 19, he walked across the Himalayas to northern India, where he later met Julie. Together they’ve created a business and a cookbook (Taste Tibet) that connect people with the culture of Tibet through its delicious food, from hand-pulled noodles to momo dumplings.

Before comedian Chris McCausland wowed audiences on Strictly Come Dancing, he spent years honing his stand-up skills and appearing on some of the UK’s best-loved panel shows, from Have I Got News for You to The Last Leg.

And yet, he’s still often called an ‘overnight success’, despite being on the stand-up scene for years. Join McCausland for a masterclass in stand-up comedy, one that has been yonks in the making!

Is going to Mars humanity’s next moonshot or a massive and expensive waste of time and resources?

This unique event – a science comedy fashion show – sees New York Times bestselling authors Cat Bohannon and Dr Kelly Weinersmith discuss what it really means to live on Mars, and how women who might give birth and raise children on the planet might be affected.

The academics present a fashion show of new wearables they’ve designed in collaboration with prominent feminist artists. Using the latest cutting-edge scientific research, they model what pregnant and postpartum bodies might really need to make it on Mars.

Bohannon’s Eve: How The Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution was Foyle’s Non-Fiction Book of the Year 2023, and Weinersmith’s A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through? won the 2024 Royal Society Science Book Prize.