Hay Festival 2023

Discover how to make your garden successful, whatever your abilities, and how to combine colours and pots for instant impact, from gardeners Sue Kent and Sarah Raven. Gardeners’ World presenter Kent is an RHS disability ambassador and RHS award-winning garden designer. Her book Sue Kent Garden Notes provides tips and tricks to successful gardening for all abilities. Gardener, cook and podcaster Sarah Raven’s A Year Full of Pots: Container Flowers for All Seasons demonstrates how accessible and satisfying growing flowers in pots can be. In conversation with Tamsin Westhorpe, editor of the Horticultural Trade Association magazine and curator and gardener of Stockton Bury Gardens, Herefordshire. Tamsin is also an RHS Chelsea Flower Show Judge and author of Grasping the Nettle and Diary of a Modern Country Gardener.

Two of the best young British novelists of 2023, as selected by Granta magazine, discuss their recent books. Sarah Bernstein’s Study for Obedience is about a woman who moves from the place of her birth to the remote northern country of her ancestors, to be housekeeper to her recently divorced brother. There, a strange series of unfortunate events begin to occur and she is put under suspicion by the locals. Eley Williams’ Moderate to Poor, Occasionally Good, due in June, is a forth-coming collection of stories from the award-winning author of The Liar’s Dictionary and Attrib. and Other Stories. The stories explore uncertainty and how we grapple with it, as well as misunderstandings and confusions in a world that appears bound by rules and codes, both spoken and unspoken. The authors speak to writer Max Liu.

Can the peace efforts of ordinary citizens impact a world engulfed in war? One hundred years ago the women of Wales dared to imagine a world without war and took steps to achieve it: nearly 400,000 signed a petition appealing to the women of America to support their call for peace. Join Mererid Hopwood and Jenny Mathers, editors of Yr Apêl/The Appeal 1923–24, as they discuss the remarkable story of the Welsh Women’s Peace Petition with Welsh journalist Betsan Powys, and seek inspiration for a new generation of peacemakers.

What’s the opposite of a kettle? Why is the sky blue? Who invented cheese? Following last year’s triumphant Hay Festival debut, the Nincompoops return to bring some much-needed intellijments to the Festival! Join Andy Stanton (Mr Gum) and Carrie Quinlan (John Finnemore’s Souvenir Programme) for a special live version of their family podcast, answering your questions with their unique mixture of wisdumb, nollidge and outright fibs. Madness, mayhem and mirth guaranteed!

Cuddle up with the Teddy Bear Ladies, Julie Tatchell and Amanda Middleditch, best known as stars of the BBC’s The Repair Shop. They’ve created the magical world of Bartie Bristle and friends in their stunning treasury Bartie Bristle and Other Stories: Tales from the Teddy Bear Ladies, and they can’t wait to share it with you!

Embark on a river-inspired journey in this magical figure-making workshop, where the wonders of nature come to life in the form of enchanting river spirits and the river goddess Gwy. We guide you through the art of crafting these whimsical figures using found leaves, sticks, flowers, seeds, nuts and a touch of string magic. No two River Spirits are alike – express your individuality through your one-of-a-kind creation. All materials are provided.

An opportunity to get crafting! Activities differ every day, including everything from print-making to junk modelling with recycled materials. Get messy and creative: your imagination is the limit.

Book for the session and you can drop in at any point during the 1.5 hour duration. Accompanying adults: please stay in attendance at all times, but you do not require a ticket.

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.

Two experts on green capitalism discuss its limits and possibilities with Bronwyn Wake, Editor in Chief of Nature Climate Change. Rathi is an award-winning senior reporter for Bloomberg News and host of climate podcast Zero. In Climate Capitalism: Winning the Global Race to Zero Emissions he looks at stories that bring people, policy and technology together, suggesting that the green economy is not only possible, but profitable. Dr Ritchie is senior researcher in the Programme for Global Development at the University of Oxford, as well as deputy editor and lead researcher at the highly influential online publication Our World in Data, which brings together the latest data and research on the world’s largest problems and makes it accessible for a general audience. Her latest book is Not the End of the World: How We Can be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet.

Don’t miss this recital performance and conversation with singers from Welsh National Opera’s young artists programme. The musicians perform a mix of well loved opera classics and some traditional Welsh folk music, accompanied by WNO players. A conversation with the artists offers the chance to find out more about life on the road with the UK’s largest touring opera company.

A BBC Radio 3 lunchtime concert series marking the centenary of Gabriel Fauré’s death. In this last of four recitals recorded for broadcast, the Leonore Piano Trio performs Fauré’s Piano Trio in D minor, Op 120 and Ravel’s Piano Trio in A minor.

Spanning 3,000 years, from the birth of Minoan Crete to the death of the Julio-Claudian dynasty in Rome, The Missing Thread: A New History of the Ancient World Through the Women Who Shaped It is a new history of the ancient world told, for the very first time, through women. For centuries, men have been writing histories of antiquity filled with warlords, emperors and kings. But when it comes to incorporating women, aside from Cleopatra and Boudica, writers have been more comfortable describing mythical heroines than real ones. While Penelope and Helen of Troy live on in the imagination, their real-life counterparts have been relegated to the margins. In The Missing Thread, Daisy Dunn inverts this tradition and puts the women of history at the centre of the narrative.

Dr Daisy Dunn is an award-winning classicist and author. Her previous book, Not Far From Brideshead: Oxford Between the Wars, was selected for Radio 4’s Open Book and longlisted for the Runciman Award. Her In The Shadow of Vesuvius: A Life of Pliny was an Editor’s Choice in the New York Times and a book of the year in several outlets.

Discover how the much-loved Dame Jacqueline Wilson started her writing career, how she created some of her best-loved characters and hear all about her new book The Girl Who Wasn’t There – a story about siblings and friendship, with a hint of ghostliness! Former Children’s Laureate and author of over 100 books, Dame Jacqueline Wilson is one of Britain’s bestselling children’s authors. Best-known for characters such as Tracy Beaker and Hetty Feather, she has legions of loyal fans in the UK and throughout the world.

There will be no signing after this event but printed signed bookplates will be available.

Join Nia Morais (Bardd Plant Cymru 2023–2025) in this interactive workshop-style event, to write your own ghost story. You’ll learn how to create tension and atmosphere in your writing that will scare and delight your audience.

Please bring your own notebook and pen or pencil to this event.

Make your own mask based on the nature, wildlife and folklore associated with the River Wye. Learn how to create a simple paper mask, which you can accessorise to make a river scene, an animal, a fish or a bird associated with the Wye, or the river goddess Gwy. All materials are provided.

Enjoy a half-hour open air performance between events. Singing is fun with Hay Community Choir – good for mental health, feeling you’re part of a whole. Come along and have a listen as the Choir share their joy in music.

The Booker Prize-winning author of The Finkler Question interrogates the power of love to change your life, and vice versa, in his 17th novel What Will Survive of Us. Lily and Sam, both highly successful in their careers but marking time in relationships that have quietly expired, find a connection that makes them come alive again. As they begin to work together on the page and on screen, an affair takes hold that they are powerless to resist. Arriving in mid-life, their relationship opens unexpected new worlds. But what will happen to them when familiarity, illness and age begin to take their toll? Jacobson talks to the Monocle Radio Books Editor

Birmingham-born performance poet, musician, professor, novelist and playwright Benjamin Zephaniah was ‘a hero to millions’ and a much-loved and respected performer at the Festival, counting among his many awards and accolades the Hay Festival Medal for poetry in 2021.

We assemble in memory of his life and his work. Waterstones Children’s Laureate Joseph Coelho, Welsh poet and Professor at Aberystwyth University’s Department of Welsh and Celtic Studies Mererid Hopwood, poet, playwright and author of Living by Troubled Waters Roy McFarlane and friends together, through reading works by Benjamin Zephaniah and their own works in response, create a tribute to this exceptional and much-missed poet.

A wonderful opportunity to sing with musicians from Welsh National Opera. Come and learn some classic operatic repertoire in this fun, interactive workshop, suitable for all ages and with no singing experience needed. This is a family-friendly event where everyone is welcome. At the end of the workshop the WNO singers will answer all your questions in a Q&A session.

Bring your magnifying glasses to help Robin Stevens celebrate 10 years of her iconic Murder Most Unladylike series. Whether you’re part of the Detective Society, a Ministry Member or just want to join the party, come and hear all about Daisy and Hazel with Robin, and take a look forward to what’s next in the Ministry of Unladylike Activity.

Welcome to the Tokyo Ghost Café! Get your sketchbooks at the ready as author Julian Sedgwick and Manga artist Chie Kutsuwada take you on an incredible journey, introducing the weird and wonderful Japanese spirits, or yokai. Learn about their unique collaboration style, the influence of Japanese culture on their books and join in with live Manga drawing with Chie.

The River Wye is under threat from pollution and environmental collapse. Become a River Wye Protector in this mixed media workshop, and design your own River Warrior to help preserve the magnificent Wye. All materials are provided.

An opportunity to get crafting! Activities differ every day, including everything from print-making to junk modelling with recycled materials. Get messy and creative: your imagination is the limit.

Book for the session and you can drop in at any point during the 1.5 hour duration. Accompanying adults: please stay in attendance at all times, but you do not require a ticket.

Come to the Family Garden for a pizza masterclass with Kitchen Garden Pizza. In this one-hour session your imagination and creativity will be fed along with your belly! You’ll get your hands messy with freshly grown and foraged ingredients, make and top your own dough and observe the pizzaioli at work at the wood-fired oven. And while you wait for your pizza to cook, you can decorate your own pizza box!
Dairy-free and gluten-free options available.

Politics can often seem devoid of compassion, with the focus on systems over people, on making money over the needs of the vulnerable. With voter distrust of politics at an all-time high, it’s clear that our existing political systems are failing to deliver solutions to the multiple interlocking crises that our world faces. In this event, our panel members talk to journalist and founder of cross party Think Tank, Compassion in Politics Jennifer Nadel about everything from the refugee crisis to wars across the world, how we can renew support for democratic ideals and what role compassion can play in creating a new political settlement that is inclusive, cooperative and effective in improving the lives of us all.

Dorling is Professor of Human Geography at the University of Oxford. Grayling is a philosopher and principal of the New College of the Humanities at Northeastern University, London, and Matharu is the Editor of the independent investigative news site and monthly print news magazine Byline Times. Price is a Member of the Senedd and former Leader of Plaid Cymru.

Daisy Goodwin brings to life a woman whose extraordinary talent, unremitting drive and natural chic made her a legend: Maria Callas. Goodwin’s new novel Diva draws on Callas’ life growing up in Nazi-occupied Greece, her fame as a soprano and her relationship with Aristotle Onassis, who then abandoned her to marry former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy. Writer and television producer Goodwin is author of My Last Duchess and The Fortune Hunter. She wrote the screenplay for Victoria, the eight-part ITV series about the early life of Queen Victoria. Goodwin talks to The Bookseller’s programme director Miriam Robinson.

Two multiple Booker-nominated authors discuss their new novels with the Monocle 24 Books Editor. Andrew O’Hagan’s Mayflies won huge acclaim and has been adapted as an award-winning BBC drama. His latest, Caledonian Road, is a state-of-the-nation novel – the story of one man’s epic fall from grace. The writer introduces us to art historian and celebrity intellectual Campbell Flynn, whose web of crimes, secrets and scandals risk being revealed, leading to the shattering exposure of all that his privilege really involves.

Sunjeev Sahota’s The Year of the Runaways and China Room received major accolades. His most recent novel, The Spoiled Heart, is a moving family mystery. Nayan, a bereaved father now dedicated to his work and running for leadership of his union, is powerfully drawn to a woman who has returned to the area. As they grow closer, the possibility arises that their pasts may have been connected.

Artificial intelligence may be the most transformative technology of our time. As AI’s power grows, so does the need to figure out what – and who – this technology is really for. Drawing lessons from three 20th-century tech revolutions – the Space race, in vitro fertilisation and the internet – Verity Harding, a leading insider in technology and politics and director of the AI & Geopolitics Institute at the Bennett Institute for Public Policy at the University of Cambridge, rejects the dominant narrative that compares AI’s advent to the atomic bomb. She speaks to Dr Jonnie Penn, associate teaching professor of AI Ethics and Society at the University of Cambridge.

Join writers and editors of the Times Literary Supplement along with special guests for a live recording of their weekly podcast on books and culture.

Take a walk to the River Wye with poet, performer and Canal Laureate Roy McFarlane. Learn to use the river and its surrounding area as inspiration and to explore or unravel your own personal stories in this creative writing session. We meet at the Wild Garden on the Festival site and set off on a short walk to the river and back, returning to the Exchange Marquee on site to reflect and write with McFarlane after the walk.

McFarlane has been Birmingham’s Poet Laureate and the Birmingham & Midland Institute’s Poet in Residence. His books include Living by Troubled Waters and The Healing Next Time.

A hundred years since the Welsh Women's Peace Petition in 1923-24, the young people of Wales are amplifying their call in 2024 with this year's Urdd Peace and Goodwill Message. To mark this moment, Codi Pais magazine launches a special issue celebrating a cultural legacy of peace that's still practiced by Welsh women today.
Join poet Casi Wyn as she meets some of the young women who participated in forming this year's Urdd Peace and Goodwill Message, and reflect on how contemporary Wales continues to play its part in fostering a culture of peace today.