Hay Festival 2020 Earlybirds

The 94-year-old author's creation celebrates its fiftieth anniversary this year. The writer discusses its enduring appeal and her long career as a writer and illustrator with the broadcaster, musician and novelist.

The writer introduces the first title in his spookily thrilling new series. Everything about Embassy of the Dead is terrifying as Jake discovers when he opens a strange box and finds a severed finger inside. How will he escape being dragged into the Eternal Void? Join the discussion on creating a world where the living meet the dead.

How do we write poetry about the familiar? The subject may be your back garden, your local coffee shop or your country of origin. In this poetry masterclass, participants will look at ways in which they can gather important information to build a narrative around place. They will learn how to distil vital aspects and convert subjective ideas into poems. All abilities welcome. You will be invited to share your work at the end.

Join writer Tom Abba to make your own ambient stories from words, audio and objects. You will be introduced to writing techniques that will help you craft stories from the world around you, and rethink your relationship with the phone in your pocket. (It would be helpful, but not essential, to bring a smartphone.) The Ambient Literature Project brings a newly written piece, especially for Hay Festival: Words We Never Wrote, by Tom Abba and Alyssia White, explores the meaning of writing, language and storytelling. Two other works will also be available – Kate Pullinger’s Breathe, and Duncan Speakman’s It Must Have Been Dark By Then.

Aristotle was an extraordinary thinker, perhaps the greatest in history. Yet he was preoccupied by an ordinary question: how to be happy. His deepest belief was that we can all be happy in a meaningful, sustained way – and he led by example. Life deals the same challenges in ancient Greece or the modern world. Aristotle’s way is not to apply rules, it’s about engaging with the texture of existence, and striding purposefully towards a life well lived. Chaired by Charlotte Higgins.

Kate Reddy is counting down the days until she is 50, but not in a good way. Fifty, in Kate’s mind, equals invisibility. And with hormones that have her in shackles, teenage children who need her but won’t talk to her and ailing parents who aren’t coping, Kate is in the middle of a sandwich that she isn’t even allowed to eat because of the calories. The long-awaited sequel to the bestselling comedy I Don’t Know How She Does It is just as funny and wise, and unputdownable.

Westover’s memoir Educated is fast achieving the status of a contemporary classic. She grew up in a remote corner of the American West preparing for the End of Days, watching for the sun to darken, for the moon to drip as if with blood. She hadn’t been registered for a birth certificate. She had no school records because she’d never set foot in a classroom, and no medical records because her father didn’t believe in doctors or hospitals. According to the state and federal government she didn’t exist. As she grew older, her father became more radical and her brother more violent. At 16 Tara decided to educate herself. Her struggle for knowledge would take her far from the Idaho mountains, over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge. Only then would she wonder if she’d travelled too far. If there was still a way home.

Who really creates wealth in our world? And how do we decide the value of what they do? In her penetrating and passionate new book, the UCL Professor of Economics proposes that if we are to reform capitalism – radically to transform an increasingly sick system rather than continue feeding it – we urgently need to rethink where wealth comes from. Which activities create it, which extract it, which destroy it?

A round-up of highlights from Hay Festival on the national radio station for Wales presented by GQ editor, Dylan Jones.

The first of four recitals broadcast from Hay this week. 
Felix Mendelssohn’s Auf Flugeln des Gesanges Op.34 No.2; Fanny Hensel Warum sind den die Rosen so blass, Op.1 No.3; Felix MendelssohnLieder ohne Worte Op.30 No.3; Fanny Hensel Die Mainacht Op.9 No.6, Lieder ohne Worte Op.8 No.3; Felix Mendelssohn Suleika 1 Op.57 No.3; Robert Schumann Lied der Suleika Op.25 No.9; Clara Schumann Liebst du um Schőnheit Op.12 No.2; Robert Schumann Widmung Op.25 No.1; Johanna Müller-Hermann Lieder Op.2; Richard Strauss Schlagende Herzen Op.29 No.2, Das Rosenband Op.36 No.1, Ständchen Op.17 No.2, Morgen Op.27 No.4

Join us for an afternoon with the much-loved author and discover how she started her writing career and created some of her most popular characters, then hear about her brand new book, Rose Rivers.

You don't need to roar to be heard...Join author and illustrator Ed Vere for a fantastic storytelling event celebrating daydreamers, quiet courage and the importance of being true to yourself. Ed will be live drawing characters from his new book and introducing children to the charms of Leonard the Lion and his best friend Marianne, who just happens to be a duck. 
A fun, thought-provoking and interactive event for children and their parents!

Join Alison Eves (Royal Institution) and Charlie Gilderdale (NRICH Cambridge) who will share some of their favourite mathematical problems. This will be a highly interactive session so be prepared to explore, explain and generalise, and discover that everyone can enjoy thinking mathematically. Problems will be selected from the popular RI Masterclass and NRICH collections.

(parents may attend but do not require a ticket)

From a shopping trip in suburban Texas, via China’s central bank, Nigerian railroads, the oilfields of Iraq and beyond, the economist and broadcaster follows the incredible journey of a single dollar to reveal the truths behind what we see on the news every day, and to see how the global economy really works. Why would a nation build a bridge on the other side of the planet? Why is China the world’s biggest manufacturer – and the USA its biggest customer? Is free trade really a good thing?

The smart-machines revolution is re-shaping our lives and our societies. Shadbolt dispels terror, confusion and misconception. We are not about to be elbowed aside by a rebel army of super-intelligent robots of our own creation. We were using tools before we became homo sapiens, and will continue to control them. How we exercise that control – in our private lives, in employment, in politics – and make the best of the wonderful opportunities, will determine our collective future well-being. Shadbolt is one of the UK’s foremost computer scientists. He is a leading researcher in artificial intelligence, a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Oxford, and chairman of the Open Data Institute, which he co-founded with Tim Berners-Lee.

Doshi launches her third collection of poems Girls Are Coming out of the Woods. “Doshi combines artistic elegance with a visceral power to create a breathtaking panorama of danger, memory, beauty and the strange geographies of happiness. This is essential, immediate, urgent work and Doshi is that rare thing, an unashamed visionary.” – PBS. Sheers reprises his landmark Reformations poem, The Men You’ll Meet, addressed to his daughters.

Pariat’s captivating novel, The Nine-Chambered Heart, is a kaleidoscopic story of one woman as seen through the eyes of those she has loved or been loved by. To read Andersson’s tale of an adulterous affair, Acts of Infidelity, is to dive inside the mind of a brilliant, infuriating friend – her lovers’ entanglements and arguments are the stuff of relationship nightmares: cutting, often cruel, and written with razor-sharp humour. Chaired by Rosie Goldsmith.

Simon Schama and David Olusoga talk about the making of this landmark arts series; the ideas, the art works, the locations, how it reached millions of viewers and how they hope it inspired a new generation of audiences to appreciate art. Chaired by writer and broadcaster, Clemency Burton-Hill.

Followed by Q&A

The Director of Hay Festival talks to the author of War Horse and Private Peaceful. They discuss in particular his latest book Flamingo Boy, set during the Second World War in the Camargue region of France. The book is inspired by his grandson.