Winter Weekend 2019

Learn how to make a work of art from the pages of recycled books, with celebrated paper artist Kate Kato, who uses discarded and recyled papers, wire and found objects to create sculptures inspired by the natural world. The theme of this event is the seasonally appropriate mushroom. All materials provided.

Father Richard Williams, the extraordinarily gifted organist, composer and parish priest of St Mary’s Church in Hay, performs his stunning live accompaniment to FW Murnau’s classic, silent 1922 Dracula film Nosferatu, using the church’s outstanding Bevington organ.

It's been a transformative 12 months at Hay Festival HQ: we welcomed new CEO Julie Finch, transitioned into a fully fledged charity and began an ambitious expansion of our education and outreach work across Wales and the world.

As we open this new chapter, Julie opens Hay Festival Winter Weekend with a forum for imagining the Festival’s future. Please join us in this discussion to ask questions, share ideas, and look towards the positive changes we can create in our community and further afield.

You can submit your questions in advance to friends@hayfestival.org and there will be time for follow-ups in the room over tea, coffee and cake. Let's talk, let's listen.

The first book of reportage from the front line of the Ukraine war, Invasion is a powerful and moving work by the Guardian journalist and New York Times best-selling author of Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money and How Russia helped Trump Win, and Shadow State, about the Salisbury poisonings.

For months, the omens had pointed in one scarcely believable direction: Russia was about to invade Ukraine. And yet, the world was stunned by the epochal scale of the assault that began in February 2022, an attempt by one nation to devour another. The Kremlin wanted nothing less than a new world order.

Reporting on the ground during the build-up to the conflict, the initial months of shock and heartbreak and grim reality of this ongoing war, Harding shares unheard human stories behind the headlines. He analyses two very different leaders: as Ukraine’s actor-turned-president Volodymyr Zelenskiy rallied support on a global stage, Vladimir Putin appeared to dwell in a strange and unreachable realm.

Delving into the ideological, religious and personal reasons driving Putin’s strategy for war, the author confronts a crucial question: what will be the endgame of this invasion?

In conversation with investigative reporter and writer Oliver Bullough, author of Butler to the World and Moneyland.

Like her father and grandfather before her, Queen Elizabeth II was not born to be monarch. Yet she led her people through more social change than any British sovereign during a life spanning abdication, war, romance, danger, tragedy and triumph. Robert Hardman, one of Britain's most acclaimed royal biographers, reflects on her extraordinary life and cultural impact.

With original insights from family, friends and staff, new interviews with world leaders plus unseen photographs and papers, including diaries and letters from the Royal Archives, the Royal biographer reveals hidden wartime secrets, the inside story of historic Royal reforms, the Queen’s relations with her ministers and international leaders, and her strategy when confronted with family and constitutional crises.

With the end of the second Elizabethan era, is it time to re-think the institution? After the mass outpouring of grief and 12-mile-long queues in London to pay respects, is there any life left in Republicanism?

The author of Farmageddon investigates the expansion of industrial farming worldwide, confronting 'Big Agriculture', where mega-farms, chemicals and animal cages are jeopardising the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat and the nature we treasure.

But he also finds hope in the pioneers who are battling to bring landscapes back to life, who are rethinking farming methods, rediscovering traditional techniques and developing technologies to feed the global population.

In conversation with Nicola Cutcher, journalist, writer and documentary maker, who recently produced Rivercide, about Britain's polluted rivers.

Many of the Plantagenet queens dramatically broke away from the restrictions imposed on their sex. Through the Black Death, Peasants' Revolt, Hundred Years' War and savage baronial wars against the monarchy, the ruling women were passionately involved. Using personal letters and wonderfully vivid sources, the historian evokes the lives of five remarkable medieval queens and brilliantly recreates this dramatic period. Weir’s previous books include The Lost Tudor Princess, The Lady in the Tower, Mistress of the Monarchy, and Eleanor of Aquitaine.

The first book of reportage from the front line of the Ukraine war, Invasion is a powerful and moving work by the Guardian journalist and New York Times best-selling author of Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money and How Russia helped Trump Win, and Shadow State, about the Salisbury poisonings.

For months, the omens had pointed in one scarcely believable direction: Russia was about to invade Ukraine. And yet, the world was stunned by the epochal scale of the assault that began in February 2022, an attempt by one nation to devour another. The Kremlin wanted nothing less than a new world order.

Reporting on the ground during the build-up to the conflict, the initial months of shock and heartbreak and grim reality of this ongoing war, Harding shares unheard human stories behind the headlines. He analyses two very different leaders: as Ukraine’s actor-turned-president Volodymyr Zelenskiy rallied support on a global stage, Vladimir Putin appeared to dwell in a strange and unreachable realm.

Delving into the ideological, religious and personal reasons driving Putin’s strategy for war, the author confronts a crucial question: what will be the endgame of this invasion?

In conversation with investigative reporter and writer Oliver Bullough, author of Butler to the World and Moneyland.

Why are women under-represented in tech? Why does it matter and what can we do about it?

Our technology is built on a series of big decisions made by a small number of people, mainly men. It is derived from the gender, nationality and beliefs of a section of society whose lived experience may not chime with your own.

The tech world might feel beyond reach, particularly if you're a woman.

In She's In CTRL, the dynamic advocate for women in STEM (Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), insists that technology is not an unchangeable force. Nor is it the preserve of the élite. It is in our homes and in our hands. Rather than feeling powerless to make changes to the way tech works and fails, she argues that it's time to get into the room where the decisions are made. Or, better yet, create our own tech rooms.

The author is the creator of the social enterprise, Stemettes, which inspires the next generation of females into science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

​Professor Rodriguez-Falcon has been recognised with numerous awards and professional recognitions, including recently being elected Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and in late 2022 was appointed Deputy Vice Chancellor of The University of Wales Trinity Saint David.

What if we could see the world afresh? if we could relate to it directly without our cultural filters? Hay Festival Bookseller Gareth Howell-Jones explores this new/old way of looking in Do Not Call the Tortoise.

Its essays encounter Goethe looking at limpets, Coleridge looking at leaves, cats, chapels, the uses of ignorance and, rather daringly, the meaning of life.

They gradually build to a perspective which is quietly but radically different from our contemporary social norms. But you mustn't take his word for it - we each need to look for ourselves!

In conversation with the novelist, poet and playwright Owen Sheers.

Please click here to buy a copy of Do Not Call the Tortoise from the Hay Festival Bookshop

An evening of diverse harp music, ranging from classical French favourites to a 20^th-century jazz suite on this fantastically versatile instrument.

Repertoire to include:

Gabriel Fauré: Impromptu for Harp

Reinhold Gliere: Impromptu for Harp

Sally Beamish: Awuya

Mared Emlyn: Perlau yn y Glaw

Pearl Chertok: Around the Clock

This is a memoir of two brothers and their extraordinary journey of resilience and repair. Written by Manni Coe and illustrated by Reuben Coe, it tells of how Reuben had been non-verbal, living in a home providing care for adults with learning disabilities, alone and unable to express himself. Desperate, he sent Manni a text message: brother. do. you. love. me.

Manni immediately left his home in Spain, took Reuben out of care and moved them both into a cottage in the Dorset countryside. Slowly they began to rebuild their relationship.

Moving, funny and poignant, the book is a parable for our times, exploring how far we can go for those we love, individually and collectively.

In conversation with award winning writer Mark Haddon, author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

Battles, borders, books and breakfast. Explore Hay Castle with Executive Director, Tom True, who will give an introduction to the history and invite you to get to know some of the characters from the Castle's past as well as talking about the recent restoration project. Continental breakfast included in the ticket price.

It’s Christmas and Odd Dog is running out of time to find the perfect presents. When she meets a new friend who needs help, she realises that gifts might not be the most important thing about Christmas after all.

Join the Draw-along hero to follow this heartwarming story as well as his path to becoming an author-illustrator. Fun, festive live-drawing and entertainment guaranteed.

Using the historic characters of Hay Castle as inspiration, learn how to make a figure out of clay with the Castle’s resident artist Rachel Ferrington and its historian.

A conversation with Hanan Issa, National Poet of Wales, on the transcendent power of poetry and Wales' strong lyrical heritage. Seventy years on from the first broadcast of Dylan Thomas' A Child's Christmas in Wales, Issa offers her own contemporary response, reflecting on the power of ceremony in uncertain times, the role of memory and nostalgia in writing, and the darkness in Welsh storytelling. The poet has been awarded the Cymrawd Rhyngwladol Cymru Greadigol Hay Festival 2022-23/Hay Festival Creative Wales International Fellowship 2022-23.

In conversation with Dylan Moore, a former recipient of the Fellowship, editor of The Welsh Agenda magazine and author of Many Rivers to Cross.

Many of the Plantagenet queens dramatically broke away from the restrictions imposed on their sex. Through the Black Death, Peasants' Revolt, Hundred Years' War and savage baronial wars against the monarchy, the ruling women were passionately involved. Using personal letters and wonderfully vivid sources, the historian evokes the lives of five remarkable medieval queens and brilliantly recreates this dramatic period. Weir’s previous books include The Lost Tudor Princess, The Lady in the Tower, Mistress of the Monarchy, and Eleanor of Aquitaine.