Hay Festival 2023

The story of animation stretches back to the early 1800s with the invention of spinning optical illusion devices such as the zoetrope. These days animation is everywhere from animated films, cartoons and GIFs to computer games and VR. But how did we get here? Learn about the origins of early animation and create your own loopy animation in this fun, hands-on workshop led by visual artists MASH Cinema.

One of the UK’s best-known poets and storytellers, Michael Rosen caught Covid-19 towards the beginning of the pandemic, becoming seriously ill and being placed in a coma by doctors so he could get better. Join him in conversation with Rachel Clarke as he discusses his new memoir Getting Better, the follow-up to 2021’s Many Different Kinds of Love, in which explores the role of trauma, asks how it’s possible to live well again after a tragedy such as a chronic illness or the loss of a loved one and ponders what it means to be recovered. Rosen, a former children’s laureate, is the author of more than 140 books. Rachel Clarke is a palliative care doctor and author of Breathtaking: Inside the NHS in a Time of Pandemic.

Imagine walking back in time through 500 million years. What would you see, smell, hear and feel in the worlds before ours? Palaeontologists Halliday and Brusatte, in conversation with science journalist Vince, take us through the story of life on earth, weaving together history and science. Halliday’s Otherlands: A World in the Making shows us the ecologies that survived and those that didn’t make it, and offers a new appreciation of the world that we are making now. Brusatte’s The Rise and Reign of the Mammals: A New History, from the Shadow of the Dinosaurs to Us looks at our mammal forebears and tells the stories of scientists whose fieldwork and discoveries underlie our knowledge.

Booker Prize-shortlisted Tan Twan Eng returns to discuss his first novel in more than a decade with journalist and editor Alex Clark. A novel about love and betrayal set in 1920s Penang, The House of Doors is based on the true story behind W Somerset Maugham’s short story The Letter, and features the writer as a character. Willie is beleaguered by an unhappy marriage, ill health and financial worries, and struggling to write. With his charming secretary Gerald, Willie arrives at an old friend’s house, and strikes up a friendship with his wife Lesley. The pair share their secrets with each other, including Lesley’s connection to the case of an Englishwoman charged with murder in the Kuala Lumpur courts – a tragedy drawn from fact, and worthy of fiction.

From Icarus to Hades, the characters and stories of Greek myths are some of the best known in the world. But what if the sirens were men luring brave heroines to their death? Or Icara and her mother flew too close to the sun? Or a beautiful man was forced to wed an underworld queen? Comic creator Karrie Fransman and digital wizard Jonathan Plackett explore the art and activism of gender swapping, illuminating the gender binaries hidden in our language, the roles we adopt and the stories we’ve been telling our children for generations.

Come and join Rooted Forest School for outdoor family sessions inspired by the Forest School approach. We’ll use foraged materials to craft natural items that you can take away with you, taking part in some simple tool use and finishing off with a hot apple juice around the fire. These sessions are aimed at families and will run whatever the weather, so make sure you’re wrapped up for the conditions.

Author and Leonard Cohen devotee Philippe Sands (East West Street, The Last Colony) speaks to renowned singer and writer Sharon Robinson, the most prolific co-writer of songs with Cohen. As well as being Cohen’s frequent writing collaborator, Robinson has written songs for a number of other artists including the Pointer Sisters, Aaron Neville, Brenda Russell, Diana Ross, Don Henley, Michael Bolton, Randy Crawford, Patti LaBelle, Roberta Flack, the Temptations and Bettye LaVette.

Doctors Henry Marsh, author of And Finally: Matters of Life and Death, and Rachel Clarke, author of Breathtaking, have worked in Ukraine during the war, visiting hospitals and helping local doctors treat their patients, and are now setting up a charity. Olesya Khromeychuk is a historian of 20th century East–Central Europe, specialising in Ukrainian history. They talk to Emma Graham-Harrison, the Guardian’s foreign affairs correspondent, about Ukraine and people’s day-to-day ordeal in a time of conflict.

What makes a brilliant teacher? Andria Zafirakou, winner of the 2018 Global Teacher Prize, discusses some of the answers with psychotherapist Maxine Mei-Fung Chung. In her new book Lessons in Life, Zafirakou talks to 30 of the world’s best teachers, who share their insight and wisdom into what teachers can do to help children become compassionate, contented and successful grown-ups, as well as conscientious global citizens. Zafirakou, a teacher at Alperton Community School in Brent in London, used her $1 million winnings from the Global Teacher Prize to set up the Artists in Residence charity, which aims to improve arts education in schools.

A story of community, friendship and the power of creativity and connection, To Fill a Yellow House centres on Kwasi and his family, who move abruptly from one side of London to the other. Kwasi is fascinated by the local high street near his new home, but as the years pass business is slow and times are getting tougher. One night, finding himself in trouble, Kwasi takes shelter in an eclectic charity shop, The Chest of Small Wonders. There, he begins an unexpected friendship with widower Rupert, and the pair unite to save the shop, even as tensions around them escalate. Anie is a British-Ghanaian writer.

Come and join Rooted Forest School for outdoor family sessions inspired by the Forest School approach. We’ll use foraged materials to craft natural items that you can take away with you, taking part in some simple tool use and finishing off with a hot apple juice around the fire. These sessions are aimed at families and will run whatever the weather, so make sure you’re wrapped up for the conditions.

Musician and writer Nick Cave and journalist Seán O’Hagan discuss their book, Faith, Hope and Carnage. Drawing on more than 40 hours of conversations between Cave and O’Hagan, the book takes readers from Cave’s early childhood to the present day, through his loves, his work ethic and his dramatic transformation in recent years, and examines questions of faith, art, music, freedom, grief and love. This is an inspiring and hopeful conversation, and a rare chance to hear directly from a creative visionary.

Learn about the simple changes you can make to lead a longer and healthier life, as Professor Rose Anne Kenny shares her pioneering research from 35 years of experience at the forefront of ageing medicine in her book Age Proof: The new Science of Living a Longer and Healthier Life. She shows us that 80% of our ageing biology is within our control, and distils scientific theory into practical advice that we can apply to our everyday lives, looking at the impact that food, genetics, friendships, purpose, sex, exercise and laughter have on how our cells age.

Take a photographic tour of some of Earth’s most fascinating islands with Duane Silverstein, executive director of Seacology, an NGO that works to protect threatened island ecosystems and cultures around the world. From the beautiful and exotic to the remote and unheard-of, he looks at what makes islands so special, the threats they face, why they must be saved, and how working respectfully with indigenous islanders is crucial.

Brown, a ​​Reader in religion and global security at the University of Birmingham and author of Gender, Religion, Extremism, argues that the distinction between victim and perpetrator is always harmful and misplaced in the cases of children raised in terrorist environments, and ultimately damaging to the most vulnerable. Asserting that there is no such thing as a ‘child terrorist’, Brown presents a case for the repatriation, reintegration and rehabilitation of all children currently trapped in Iraq and Syria, and offers solutions for how we can begin to create secure and safe futures for them and for wider society.

Develop your illustration skills at this masterclass in collaging for grown-ups, delivered by Hay Festival 2023 Illustrator in Residence Beth Suzanna. You’ll work with Beth through a series of quick exercises and collage techniques to explore your body language and minuscule quirks and create a piece of art that captures your essence in a self-portrait.

Beth has collaborated with hip hop star, actor and writer Jordan Stephens on a children’s book The Missing Piece, published in 2022 – you can see them talking about their collaboration in an event on Sunday 28 May, 10am.

Collaging materials will be provided but feel free to bring your own along.

Our politics – and our politicians – can seem chaotic and confusing, so how do we make sense of what’s happening? Daniel Finkelstein, who has had a long political career in the Conservative Party and who now works as a journalist for The Times, Jess Phillips, MP for Birmingham Yardley, John Crace, parliamentary sketch writer for the Guardian, and editor and journalist Baroness Rosie Boycott help us understand British politics today.

Twitter’s unofficial poet laureate Brian Bilston presents an hour of poetry and laughter as he reads from work including his latest book Days Like These. Expect poems that will take the blues out of Monday, flatten the Wednesday hump and amplify that Friday feeling, from January through to December.

MP Jesse Norman’s witty historical novel The Winding Stair is the story of the rivalry between scholar Francis Bacon and Edward Coke, already acclaimed as the greatest lawyer of his generation. As Queen Elizabeth I is dying and James I waiting to accede, Bacon and Coke are locked in a bitter struggle for influence and power in the palaces, parliaments and royal courts. Norman, the MP for Hereford and South Herefordshire and currently Minister of State in the Department for Transport, discusses combining history and fiction to create a tale of political machinations.

What would we think if we saw the wonderful things around us without our cultural filters? And how would we behave? In Do Not Call The Tortoise our own Festival Bookseller, Gareth Howell-Jones, explores these questions with essays on ignorance, Darwin, Coleridge, cats and even, rather daringly, the meaning of life. He discovers a radical, fresh perspective called STA, an attempt to see the wonders around us without our cultural preconceptions. “I am a great believer in STA. It is more than a book and has enriched my life deeply” – Max Porter. Gareth will be talking to Horatio Clare, author of Heavy Light: A Journey Through Madness, Mania and Healing and The Light in the Dark.