Hay Festival Winter Weekend 2024

Once upon a time not very far from now, two children come home to find a line of wet red paint encircling the outside of their house. But this is no predictable fairytale. Instead, it’s the start of the electrifying new novel Gliff by Ali Smith, one of Britain’s best contemporary writers.

Smith, the winner of awards including the Orwell Prize and the Women’s Prize, often plays with form and structure in her books, and continues her innovative storytelling in Gliff, which is the first of two new interconnected novels.

In the book, the question of what the red paint means leads to a discussion of a toxic world, hostile states, resistance and, above all, how humans make meaning. Join Smith for an insight into the world of Gliff, which nods to dystopian fiction and the Kafkaesque, and is a new take on the notion of classic. Smith talks to artist and filmmaker Sarah Wood.

Tucked into the Welsh valleys and encircled by silver birch and pine is the village of Cwmcysgod, a quiet and sleepy place. But all is not as it seems in Alex McCarthy’s novella The Unbroken Beauty of Rosalind Bone: there are simmering tensions in Cwmcysgod, where a unique cast of characters gives voice to their version of the truth, and of the story of Rosalind Bone. McCarthy introduces the world of Cwmcysgod and characters including 16-year-old Catrin Bone and her embittered and reclusive mother, Mary, whose sister disappeared from the village in a shroud of shame years before.

McCarthy was born in Cardiff and grew up in South Wales. An alumna of London Contemporary Dance School, she worked as a dancer and choreographer for a number of years on stage, TV and film. The Unbroken Beauty of Rosalind Bone won Wales Fiction Book of the Year 2024.

She talks to author and previous Wales Book of the Year winner Caryl Lewis.

In Paula Hawkins’ fourth thriller The Blue Hour, a small bone at the centre of a famous sculpture is revealed to be human, and three people become intimately connected by the secrets and lies that put it there. Set on a Scottish tidal island connected to the mainland for just a few hours each day, and home to only one inhabitant, The Blue Hour asks questions of ambition, power, art and perception.
Hawkins discusses her novel with Julia Gillard, former Australian prime minister, chair of the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership, and host of A Podcast of One’s Own.

Hawkins worked as a journalist for 15 years before writing her first novel The Girl on the Train, which has sold more than 23 million copies worldwide. Published in over 50 languages, it was adapted for a hit film starring Emily Blunt. Paula’s thrillers Into the Water and A Slow Fire Burning were also instant number one bestsellers.

Beware an encounter with the Turon and Mari Lwyd beasts as you enter St Mary’s Churchyard for a night of tales of folklore and mysterious creatures. Keep your wits about you as you hear stories of English mummers plays and Austrian Krampus runs, to modern pagan rituals at Stonehenge and the night in Finland when a young girl is crowned with candles as St Lucy – a martyred Christian girl who also appears as a witch leading a procession of the dead.

Folk musician John Kirkpatrick will sing to the spirits in the churchyard as you arrive and lead you into the candlelit church where author Sarah Clegg awaits to take you on a journey through midwinter to explore the lesser-known Christmas traditions.

Ghastly and ghostly, Clegg looks at the origins of midwinter mythologies, and with accompaniment from Kirkpatrick and Blackthorn Ritualistic Folk brings to life an unsettling tale or two. After all, a little darkness never hurt anyone, did it?

Be brave, be bold, and join Danny Robins as he leads you on his real-life investigation into the paranormal. Prepare to be chilled to the bone as Robins recounts modern-day ghost stories, all of which are entirely true… No ghost hunting experience required, but an open mind is a must. Robins is an award-winning British writer, broadcaster and journalist. He created the hit BBC podcasts The Battersea Poltergeist, Uncanny and The Witch Farm, and the Olivier Award-nominated West End play 2:22 - A Ghost Story, which is now playing in countries around the world. The hit TV show of Uncanny was broadcast in October 2023, and has been recommissioned for a second series. In his new book Into the Uncanny, Robins uncovers the truth behind modern-day ghost sightings and explores the power of paranormal experiences. Robins is in conversation with journalist, writer and documentary maker Nicola Cutcher.

Be swept away by actor Rupert Everett’s first collection of short stories, which take readers from a chaotic and emotional funeral to Paris to an L.A. talent agency via a middle-aged Russian countess confronting sex and age in a Cotswold teashop. Everett speaks to author, comedian and classicist Natalie Haynes about The American No, discussing his inspirations and process, and diving into how the wealth of film and TV ideas he’s created over his career have fed into the collection.

Everett shot to fame with the film Another Country in 1984 and has been a hugely successful actor and writer for many years. His films include Napoleon, My Policeman, Adult Material, The Name of the Rose and Funny Woman. His stage work includes playing Oscar Wilde in David Hare’s The Judas Kiss, for which he won the WhatsOnStage Award for Best Actor in a Play and was nominated for an Olivier Award. His first memoir, Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins, was a Sunday Times bestseller and its sequel, Vanished Years, won the Sheridan Morley Prize for Biography. His film of Oscar Wilde’s last years, The Happy Prince, was released in 2018 to widespread acclaim.