Hay Festival 2016

Roula Khalaf is editor of the Financial Times. She was previously deputy editor from 2016 to 2020, overseeing a range of newsroom initiatives and award-winning editorial projects and leading a global network of more than 100 foreign correspondents. She gives this year's lecture honouring the great contrarian​focusing on how to restore trust in journalism followed by a Q&A session chaired by Alan Rusbridger, Editor of Prospect magazine.

Adam Gabriel has always been a child of nature. Raised on his parents’ remote Yorkshire farm, where life is measured by the rhythms of the seasons, and the yearly arrival of an itinerant local monk, he seems destined for a quietly contented life. When tragedy turns the family’s life upside down, Adam faces a stark choice. When he needs it most, can he find the strength to save the people he loves? The author is known to millions as presenter of Love Your Garden, Ground Force, and ITV’s Spring Into Summer. He has written more than 40 gardening books, 11 novels and three volumes of memoirs. He talks to journalist and editor Alex Clark.

Dylan Huw works bilingually across criticism, fiction and collaborative projects, and is one of the Arts Council of Wales' Future Wales Fellows. Crystal Jeans, short story writer and novelist, won the Wales Book of the Year for her novel Light Switches Are My Kryptonite. David Llewellyn, novelist and scriptwriter, was shortlisted for the Polari Prize with A Simple Scale. Kirsti Bohata, Professor of English Literature and the Co-Director of the Centre for Research into the English Language and Literature at Swansea University, maps the importance of the short story form in the development and portrayal of queer culture to mark the publication of a groundbreaking anthology of queer writing from Wales.

In the third of four BBC Radio 3 lunchtime recitals broadcast at Hay Festival this week, presented by BBC Radio 3 presenter Sarah Walker, the Mithras Piano Trio play Dvořák's Piano Trio No 3 in F minor, Op 65 and Shulamit Ran's Soliloquy.

Authors and award-winning young climate activists Amy and Ella Meek discuss their latest book Be Climate Clever. These two passionate changemakers answer all your burning questions about climate change. This is a ‘don’t miss’ event for all children interested in the environment.

Author of When the Sky Falls Phil Earle’s latest book sees Noah on an unforgettable wartime mission to save his beloved dog Winn, in a remarkable story inspired by true events. In September 1939, as Noah’s dad marches off to war, he asks Noah to keep the family dog safe. But Noah’s hopes of doing that are crushed when the government advises people to take their pets to the vet to have them put down as part of the war preparations. Noah refuses to let that happen to Winn. With his two friends in tow, he makes a pledge to go on the run and save as many animals as he can, no matter what.

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 2.5 hour duration. An accompanying adult must attend at all times but does not require a ticket.

Hay Shantymen sing rollicking shanties here on the East Coast of Wales. Enjoyment is guaranteed or else you’ll walk the plank!

The broadcaster and champion of artisan foods presents her first cookbook, sharing 100 simple, seasonal recipes from her home in Monmouthshire, with ideas for every occasion from brunch to dinner and special feasts (there is rhubarb vodka involved). Andrew Montgomery took the photographs which, Kate says, “are intrinsic to the book”. They discuss how words and pictures came together to create the right tone, atmosphere and content – in all Welsh weathers. Kate Humble’s book Thinking on my Feet was shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize. Andrew Montgomery’s clients include Country Living, Telegraph magazine, Gardens Illustrated, Waitrose and Delicious. His latest book is Winter Gardens. Kitty Corrigan is former deputy editor of Country Living magazine.

The two educators are joined by educational journalist Fiona Millar to explore essential changes needed to help today’s young people meet tomorrow’s needs. Their new book About Our Schools presents interview evidence from 18 education ministers and around 100 others, including school leaders, teachers, parents, right through to former CEOs of Ofsted and various Multi-Academy Trusts. They assess what should happen now in terms of curriculum, assessment, school inspection and Ofsted and how we can keep brilliant teachers. They also consider how we can ensure schools are preparing pupils for a future changed by automation, robotics, social media and climate change.

We are told that modern science was invented in Europe, the product of great minds like Nicolaus Copernicus, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein. But science has never been a uniquely European endeavour. James Poskett (Associate Professor of the History of Science at the University of Warwick) presents a revolutionary and revelatory global history of science, exploring the ways in which scientists from Africa, America, Asia and the Pacific fit into this global story and celebrating unsung heroes.

Hay Writers’ Circle is a dynamic group, active in Hay for more than 40 years. It offers three competitions annually for poetry, fiction and non-fiction, each of which is open to both members and non-members. There is an active work in progress group for those working on longer projects. Hay Writers’ Circle has an ongoing, productive relationship with a local primary school. The writers share some recent work.

A new collaboration with Shakespeare’s Globe brings nine performances of Julius Caesar to a specially commissioned open-air theatre at the newly renovated Hay Castle. The travelling company of actors, will bring to life Shakespeare’s political thriller with a stripped back production made fresh for our world today.

Touring has been a longstanding tradition at Shakespeare’s Globe in London, since the tours of the Elizabethan Lord Chamberlain’s Men. Shakespeare’s versatile troupe toured frequently in the summer especially when there was a plague or political unrest. Shakespeare’s Globe has now established a world renowned reputation for highly ambitious and economical Shakespearean storytelling in the rough and ready fashion of Elizabethan times.

“We are so delighted to be able to finally come to the Hay Festival to perform against the breath-taking backdrop of Hay Castle.” – Shakespeare’s Globe

Click here to pre-book a delicious picnic box to enjoy during the performance.

Get ready to meet Cookie, who is funny, science-obsessed and ready to take on the world! Blue Peter presenter and children’s book author Konnie Huq explores the world of her popular Cookie! series with science experiments and a science quiz, tips on how to save the planet and a look at computer programming.

Award-winning Welsh author Manon Steffan Ros leads an informal writing workshop about how to write about the things that matter to us. How can we use stories as a way of making us feel a bit better, or to better understand the world? Manon guides us into the world of creative writing with tasks that aim to open up a new way of interpreting the world.

The Garrick Singers from Hereford Courtyard will perform a selection of songs with a smile that they hope to share.

In this memoir-ish book, Minnie Driver uses her formidable storytelling skills to examine and understand her less-than-ordinary life. She shares poignant, candid and honest stories of her unconventional childhood, the shock of fame, motherhood, love, success, failure and more. It’s about how things not working out actually worked out in the end, and how reaching for the dream is easily more interesting, expansive, sad and funny than the dream itself coming true. She talks to journalist and editor Alex Clark.

In 2015 Svetlana Alexievich won the Nobel Prize for Literature “for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time”. Using a wide range of interviews and crossing the boundary between reporting and fiction, she writes in a way that lets human voices speak for themselves. In 2018 she won the Anna Politkovskaya Award from the human rights organisation RAW in WAR, honouring women journalists and human rights defenders working in war and conflict zones. Mariana Katzarova is founder of RAW in WAR (Reach All Women in War) and the Anna Politkovskaya Award. In 2014, she led the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission’s team in Eastern Ukraine for two years at the start of the armed conflict. The duo hold a conversation about a region that has historically suffered from a conflict that is now threatening the whole world.

Susan and Norma have been best friends for years, at first thrust together by force of circumstance (a job at The Pin Cushion, a haberdashery shop in 1990s Leicestershire) and then by force of character. Now, 30 years later, faced with a husband seeking immortality and Norma out of reach on a wave of professional glory, Susan begins to wonder whether she has made the right choices about life, love, work, and, most importantly, friendship. This is the story of the wonderful and sometimes surprising path of friendship: from its conspiratorial beginnings, along its irritating wrong turns, to its final gratifying destination. Georgina Godwin presents the Arts Podcast for the British Council and is Books Editor for Monocle 24.

Trees are the ultimate carbon capture and storage machines. Large-scale tree planting is an increasingly popular component of global efforts to meet climate targets. But forests are complex ecosystems, and poorly planned planting efforts can actually increase the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and exacerbate global warming. How do we balance the clear need to plant more trees with the other demands on land use and how do we take account of the other benefits provided by increasing tree cover? Darren Moorcroft is CEO of the Woodland Trust, Clare Pillman is CEO of Natural Resources Wales and Rob Penn is a writer, broadcaster and photographer.