Hay Festival 2023

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. Accompanying adults: please stay in attendance at all times, but you do not require a ticket.

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.

In his latest book, “The God Desire”, David Baddiel suggests that we do - we have a need to believe in a higher being. And that is why, he says, he’s been led to a kind of “reluctant atheism”.

Aleem Maqbool spoke to David Baddiel about his faith and the journey that led to this point.

Beyond Belief is the Radio 4 show that takes a personal story and explores what this tells us about the way faith shapes our world. In this special episode, recorded at The Hay Festival, BBC Religion Editor, Aleem Maqbool, brings together a panel of writers, poets and thinkers to discuss one of the biggest questions of our existence. Why do humans believe in God? Is it something that is hard-wired into human nature? Is the fear of oblivion a driving force in religious belief? Or is it all just a product of our imagination?

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.

Rana Mitter hosts a discussion with a panel of guests: Timothy Garton Ash is author of Homelands: A Personal History of Europe; journalist Ece Temelkuran has written about Turkey’s history; Ben Judah is author of This is Europe: The Way We Live Now; and IWM Rector Misha Glenny has written on the former Yugoslavia and Eastern Europe and presents the Radio 4 series about different countries The Invention of…

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.

Anie talks to publisher, curator and writer Nia Thomas.

One of the biggest challenges in tackling the climate emergency is not technical, we know what we need to do - it is in how the necessary change is communicated. How do we communicate the seriousness of the situation and avoid the pitfalls of despair and despondency. What are the key issues and how does the messaging need to change depending on the audiences?

Johan Rockström is an internationally recognised scientist for his work on global sustainability. He helped lead a team of scientists that presented the planetary boundaries framework, first published in 2009 and updated in 2015.

Mike Rann is chair of the Climate Group and former Premier of South Australia from 2002 to 2011. He was also Climate Change Minister, the first in Australia.

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. Duane is in conversation with Adam Rutherford, geneticist and the presenter of BBC Radio 4 programme Inside Science and co-presenter of The Curious Cases of Rutherford and Fry.

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.