Hay Festival Scribblers Tour
For the past fourteen years, Hay Festival Scribblers Tour has taken award-winning Young Adult (YA) writers directly to thousands of Year 7–10 pupils across Wales to deliver interactive workshops. These events took place in Welsh universities annually in January/February with thanks to Welsh Government funding.
The project aimed to engage and encourage the next generation of storytellers and to inspire conversations, empathy and creativity, giving young people an opportunity to meet authors and share ideas.
The Scribblers Tour is taking a break in 2026 as we develop a new series of learning and engagement initiatives to launch soon. Please make sure you're signed up to our schools newsletter to hear about the latest projects and events coming your way – email us on schools@hayfestival.com to sign up. Thank you for your continued support.
The Scribblers Tour in 2025
Week 1 Host – Jenny Valentine
Award-winning YA author and teen champion Jenny Valentine compèred Week 1 of the Scribblers Tour and encouraged pupils to find their own words to express ideas and creativity throughout the tour.
Week 1 / Event 1: Steven Camden
Polarbear, AKA Steven Camden, led students through his process for creating a story world and crafting a beginning for narrative writing or poetry. In this interactive session students collaborated with Steven as well as building their own story or poem. Drawing from his award-winning collection Everything All At Once, Steven touched on how to use elements of place, rhythm and voice to bring writing to life.
Week 1 / Event 2: Liz Hyder
Liz's fun and fast-paced workshop saw students write a short story inspired only by a hagstone – a pebble with a hole all the way through it. Students harnessed their imaginations and used their senses to create atmosphere, and make their writing feel immersive throughout. A great confidence-building workshop, it inspired students to realise that, if they can make up a story using only a rock as a starting point, there’s no limit to what else they might achieve. Liz Hyder is the award-winning writer of two critically acclaimed books for young people – Bearmouth and The Twelve.
Week 2 Host – Sarah KilBride
Sarah KilBride is the author of the successful series Princess Evie's Ponies, selling over a million copies worldwide. Her latest book, A Cuddle and a Cwtch, is available in English and Welsh. Sarah has been working with Hay Festival Education since 2023.
Week 2 / Event 1: Jenny Valentine
Jenny Valentine shared her thinking about lists. Long lists, short lists, shopping lists, wish lists, missing lists, to-do lists. Everybody writes them, one way or another. Our lists say more about us than we realise. And they can be very helpful when you are writing a story! Students made lists with Jenny about everyday things or life and death things, and Jenny introduced them to her latest YA novel, Us in the Before and After, a tear-jerking, heartbreakingly beautiful read about the fallout of a sudden death and the lifelong consequences of a single tragic act.
Week 2 / Event 2: Ashley Hickson-Lovence
Ashley Hickson-Lovence, author of Wild East, led students through spoken word sonnet writing. This interactive creative writing workshop combined music and poetry to help students find their lyrical voice. Ashley incorporated instrumental UK hip hop and live performance to help budding writers craft compelling spoken-word-style sonnets. Ashley is a novelist, poet, literary critic, Lecturer of Creative Writing and a football referee.
Day at a glance
| 10am | Schools arrive |
| 10.15am–10.30am | Introduction |
| 10.30am–11.15am | Event 1 – Steven Camden (week 1) / Jenny Valentine (week 2) |
| 11.15am–11.30am | Break |
| 11.30am–12.15pm | Event 2 – Liz Hyder (week 1) / Ashley Hickson-Lovence (week 2) |
| 12.15pm–1pm | Lunch and book signing |
| 1pm–1.45pm | Event 3 – University session |
| 1.45pm–2pm | Pupil and teacher evaluation |
| 2pm | End |
