Hay Festival 2021

Fabulously funny actor and author Stephen Mangan and tremendously talented illustrator Anita Mangan bring us laughter, games, drawing and sibling stories. The creators of Escape the Rooms and The Fart that Changed the World are back with their laugh-out-loud new book, The Unlikely Rise of Harry Sponge. Get ready to meet a grumpy king without an heir and five kids competing for the throne in the ‘Crown Duels’. Find out what it takes to be the greatest kid in the kingdom and discover how you should never underestimate the underdog.

This heart-warming family show, based on the much-loved novels by Tove Jansson, tells the story of a year in Moominvalley. Moomintroll wakes up in the middle of winter with a ‘something-wrong-feeling’. There’s no sign of his good friend Snufkin, or the note Snufkin left him. As winter turns to spring and Snufkin returns, the days lengthen into a lazy summer and ‘the sea brings them all the adventures they could wish for’.

There is a question everyone has to ask and answer – in fact, has to keep on asking and keep on answering. It is ‘How should I live my life?’, meaning ‘What sort of person should I be? What values shall I live by? What shall I aim for?’ The great majority of people do not ask this question, they merely answer it unthinkingly in conventional ways. This is the ‘Socratic Question’, challenging us to examine the philosophy of life we live by. Everyone has a philosophy of life, but most people do not know that they have one, because they imbibed it unconsciously from society, parents, schools, friends. What are the assumptions of that unconscious philosophy, and the reasons for living according to it? Do these assumptions and reasons survive scrutiny? If one really thought about one’s life and the philosophy that underlies it, what changes would one make?

In Philosophy and Life Grayling explores how to answer the Socratic challenge and examines the most important questions that arise in doing so: death, the great inevitable, love, the great desirable, meaning, the great mystery – and the great hope, happiness. What do these concepts mean – really mean? And what difference will exploring them, and other equally important questions, make to one’s life and its choices? A serious but accessible and stimulating account of what philosophy offers in thinking about life, its value and its meaning.

Discover the lives, loves, adventures and trailblazing musical careers of four now largely forgotten extraordinary women from Leah Broad, a junior research fellow at Christ Church, Oxford University and author of Quartet: How Four Women Changed the Musical World and Alice Farnham, a conductor who has played concerts with the Philharmonia Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, BBC Concert Orchestra, and Southbank Sinfonia, author of In Good Hands: The Making of a Modern Conductor. In conversation with cultural historian Gavin Plumley, the pair introduce Ethel Smyth, a queer Victorian composer famed for her operas; Rebecca Clarke, a violist who was one of the first women ever hired by a professional orchestra; Dorothy Howell, a prodigy known as the ‘English Strauss’; and Doreen Carwithen, one of Britain’s first woman film composers who scored Elizabeth II’s coronation film.

The causes and immediate consequences of wars are picked over again and again, but less thought often goes into thinking about what the world will look like after a war. Drawing upon the contrast between planning for the post-World War II world and the lack of such planning at the end of the Cold War, Jan Ruzicka – a lecturer in security studies at the University of Aberystwyth – takes us through what the world will look like once the war in Ukraine has ended and asks us to imagine a more secure and safer world.

Explore society’s attitude to men’s mental health today with Alex Holmes, Antonio Mazzone and Benna Waites. Holmes is a podcaster and therapist, and author of Time to Talk: How Men Feel About Love, Belonging and Connection. Mazzone is a film-maker whose film A Day in the Life of Anxiety was based on his own experience. Waites is a consultant clinical psychologist.

Welsh stand-up comedian Robin Morgan attempts to write a routine with the crowd to explore the complexities of writing live comedy.

Tim Peake was the first British astronaut to conduct a spacewalk at the International Space Station, and an inspiration for budding young scientists and astronauts everywhere. In this out-of-this-world event, Peake talks about his first non-fiction book for children, The Cosmic Diary of Our Incredible Universe, in which readers will discover everything from how stars are made, to which fruit can create antimatter. Peake is a former Apache pilot, flight instructor, test pilot and European Space Agency astronaut whose books include his memoir Limitless, and the photography collection Hello, is this Planet Earth?

In today's digital age, storytelling is no longer confined to traditional mediums like books and films. With the advent of social media and digital platforms, storytelling has become more accessible and interactive than ever before. Whether you're a marketer looking to promote a brand or a content creator trying to build an audience, digital storytelling can help you achieve your goals.

In this masterclass, we'll explore what digital storytelling is and why it's relevant in today's world. We'll dive into the statistics that show the impact of digital storytelling and share top tips and practical advice on how to create compelling stories that resonate with your audience.

Hosted by Amrit Singh, award-winning artist, content creator, and public speaker with over 15 years of experience in the creative industries. As the creative director at Rebel Creatives, he specialises in short-form content production, immersive technology, social media strategy, and digital training. As an artist, MrASingh channels his passion for nature and world cultures into his vivid and textured mixed media artworks, which have been featured in over 40 exhibitions worldwide.

Join musician Stormzy and authors from #Merky Books, including Jade LB (Keisha The Sket) and Jyoti Patel (The Things That We Lost) in person, with Malorie Blackman (Just Sayin’) joining digitally, to celebrate five years of the award-winning publishing imprint he founded. #Merky Books launched with the ambition to publish books that will own – and change – the mainstream. Featuring established authors and exciting new voices, this is an evening of discussions and performance.

The conversation will be moderated by author, academic, and broadcaster Emma Dabiri.

Philosopher and economist Daniel Chandler and activist and economist Faiza Shaheen speak to writer and translator Daniel Hahn about the pressing issue of class inequality, its devastating effects in today’s United Kingdom, and how we can build a fairer society. Chandler’s book Free and Equal offers a vision of a better world for us all. Shaheen’s Know Your Place: How Society Sets us up to Fail is part memoir, part polemic, taking a personal and statistical look at how society is built and who it leaves behind.

Get an exclusive preview of Kate Mosse’s epic new novel, The Ghost Ship, and an introduction to Kim Sherwood’s historical novel A Wild & True Relation. The Ghost Ship is inspired by the real-life story of pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Read, and follows two women in 1621. A Wild & True Relation opens during the Great Storm of 1703, as smuggler Tom West confronts his lover Grace for betraying him to the Revenue, and takes her orphaned daughter Molly on board ship disguised as a boy to join his crew. Sherwood and Mosse discuss writing powerful women, and books inspired by moments and people in history.

It’s part of our fabric to want to find stories where we identify with the characters and can imagine what it would feel like to be them. Graham Nolan from Hay Pride hosts this discussion, inviting our LGBTQ+ panellists to identify the stories that helped to shape them, asking them about their favourites and sharing the excitement of finding ourselves through our choice of reading matter. Cheddar Gorgeous is a star of Channel 4’s Drag SOS and BBC’s RuPaul’s Drag Race UK. Rachel Dawson is a lesbian, working-class Welsh writer and author of Neon Roses. Durre Shahwar is a writer and editor of Gathering, an essay anthology of nature writing by women of colour.

The therapist, podcaster and author of Time To Talk breaks down mental health barriers, looking at how shame can impact on mental health and wellbeing at home and in the workplace. In this workshop, he will explore how shame impacts identity and mental wellbeing, and promote self-care and suicide prevention.

Our bodies are governed by a 24-hour biological clock, something all too easy to ignore in a world where we push our daily routines – from work to socialising and exercise – into the dark. Learn how to live a healthier, sharper life using your body clock with Russell Foster, director of the Sleep and Circadian Neuroscience Institute, head of the Nuffield Laboratory of Ophthalmology at the University of Oxford and author of Life Time: The New Science of the Body Clock and How It Can Revolutionise Your Sleep and Health, who shares his own studies and insights from an international community of sleep scientists to illustrate the surprising effects the time of day can have on our health.

Women artists currently make up just 1% of the National Gallery collection in London, while 2023 marks the first time the Royal Academy of Arts has ever hosted a solo exhibition by a woman – Marina Abramović – in their main space. Curator and art historian Katy Hessel, who created the @thegreatwomenartists Instagram account, challenges the art canon as we know it and showcases the female and gender non-conformist artists who are so often excluded from the history books, shining a spotlight on the glittering paintings of Sofonisba Anguissola of the Renaissance, the radical work of Harriet Powers in the nineteenth-century US, the astonishing work of post-war artists in Latin America and the women artists defining art in the 2020s.

Evoking the atmosphere of a Morocco on the cusp of change, Leïla Slimani talks about her latest novel, Watch Us Dance, the second in a trilogy inspired by her family, with BBC journalist Razia Iqbal. Set in 1968, the book follows Mathilde, a wealthy woman who has won a battle with her husband to build a swimming pool in their garden. But Mathilde and her family are about to find their lives taking wild and unexpected turns. Slimani is the first Moroccan woman to win France’s most prestigious literary prize, the Prix Goncourt. A journalist and commentator on women’s and human rights, she is French president Emmanuel Macron’s personal representative for the promotion of the French language and culture.

Two writers from Quebec in Canada – Louis Hamelin and Juliana Léveillé-Trudel – and two from Wales – Siân Melangell Dafydd and Llŷr Gwyn Lewis – discuss their work in the context of the ecosystems they write in, natural and cultural, with Director of Literature Across Frontiers Alexandra Büchler. Hamelin has published short stories and novels. Léveillé-Trudel practices various forms of writing, from adult novels to children’s literature and theatre. Dafydd is an author, poet and translator who writes in both Welsh and English. Lewis is a Welsh-language writer living in Cardiff.

Essential reading for anyone passionate about music or popular culture, Bob Stanley’s new book Let’s do it: The Birth of Pop starts with the invention of the 78 rpm record at the end of the 19th century. Detailing the dramatic and surprising story of popular music It considers the impact of superstars such as Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith, and pays tribute to the unheralded songwriters and arrangers behind some of our most enduring songs. Stanley, a musician, writer, film producer and former member of the band Saint Etienne who was Eccles Centre & Hay Festival Writer’s Award 2018 winner, discusses his book with Colin Grant, author of I’m Black so you Don’t Have to be.