Hay Festival 2025 Full Programme

In this pen-to-portrait workshop with author and illustrator Siôn Tomos Owen, you’ll explore creating a character by developing their personal history. Learn how to create the story of their life through exploring the events, hobbies and people in their lives. Finally, see how you can use these stories to describe how they look as an illustration.

An opportunity to get crafting! Activities differ every day, including everything from print-making to junk modelling with recycled materials. Get messy and creative in these interactive sessions delivered by artists and discover that your imagination is the only limit.

Book for the session and you can drop in at any point during the 1.5 hour duration. Accompanying adults: please stay in attendance at all times, but you do not require a ticket.

Kairos is a duo of harp and flute/recorders from Oxfordshire, comprising of Anna Lockett and Jill Horner. They enjoy making music of a variety of genres in different contexts, and both share a passion for using music therapeutically in the community. As Kairos, they explore creating their own folk arrangements and compositions, and experiment with arranging romantic, baroque and contemporary repertoire.

Join Robert Harris, pre-eminent writer of page-turning thrillers – most recently Precipice – as he casts a retrospective eye over his work on page and screen and shares insights into his current projects.

Nine of Harris’s bestsellers have been adapted for cinema and television, from Fatherland to Enigma and Archangel. For The Ghost Writer and An Officer and a Spy, Harris co-wrote the screenplays with director Roman Polanski. Most recently, his 2016 novel Conclave was adapted for cinema – the film came out to acclaim in 2024, starring Ralph Fiennes and Stanley Tucci.

Exploring the relationship between author, book and screen, Harris reveals the high points and the pitfalls of adapting books for film. He talks to broadcast journalist, Rebecca Jones.

Furniture restorer Will Kirk and woodworker Callum Robinson celebrate the joys of working with wood and finding hope in longevity in a culture where everything seems easily disposable.

Kirk, who has appeared on The Repair Shop since 2017, is author of Restore, a guide to the principles of woodworking, restoration and maintaining items around your home. Robinson grew up as the son of a Master Woodworker, but lost touch with his roots when he set up his own business and began to chase more commercial projects. In Ingrained, he recounts how he returned to the workshop and to wood, handcrafting furniture and reconnecting with his craft.

They discuss how woodworking brings us closer to nature, the benefits of slowing down, and why working with our hands in the modern age can offer us peace.

In conversation with journalist, woodsman, lifelong cyclist and author, Robert Penn.

How might AI change and supercharge medical advancement? And what does it mean for our healthcare? Kamran Abbasi, editor of the British Medical Journal, talks to lawyer Susie Alegre and doctor Rachel Clarke about how AI could solve the problem of disease and making vaccines, the role ChatGPT and robots could play in medical care, and how to successfully navigate the path between big business and personal health.

Abbasi is a doctor, journalist, editor and broadcaster. Alegre is a leading international human rights lawyer who has worked for NGOs including Amnesty International, and is author of Human Rights, Robot Wrongs. Clarke is a palliative care doctor and author of Dear Life, shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award and chosen as a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week, and Rippon is Professor Emeritus of Cognitive Neuroimaging at the Institute of Health and Neurodevelopment, Aston University.

Sarah Harman’s debut novel won the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize in 2023. Harman is a recovering journalist with over a decade of experience reporting on major breaking news around the world. She discusses her course change into fiction with Kiran Millwood-Hargrave, award-winning author of The Girl of Ink & Stars and Leila and the Blue Fox.

All the Other Mothers Hate Me is a witty novel about fitting in and starting over. Florence knows all about failure. After a dismal end to her 2000s girlband career, she’s moping around West London, single, broke and unfulfilled. The only things she’s proud of are her increasingly elaborate nail art choices – and her ten-year-old son, Dylan. But when Alfie, Dylan’s bitter class rival and the child heir to a frozen foods empire, mysteriously vanishes on a school trip, Dylan becomes a prime suspect, and Florence has to get her act together…

From celebrated filmmaker Mati Diop (Atlantics), Dahomey is a poetic and immersive work of art that delves into real perspectives on far-reaching issues surrounding appropriation, self-determination and restitution. Set in November 2021, the documentary charts 26 royal treasures from the Kingdom of Dahomey that are due to leave Paris and return to their country of origin: the present-day Republic of Benin.

Using multiple perspectives Diop questions how these artifacts should be received in a country that has reinvented itself in their absence. Winner of the coveted Golden Bear prize at the 2024 Berlinale, Dahomey is an affecting though altogether singular conversation piece that is as spellbinding as it is essential.

“Invigorating and enlivening… An interrogative reverie about colonialism, culture, the past and the present” – The Guardian

In 1995, the London Review of Books ran the cover line ‘Was Jane Austen gay?’ Many people were horrified, including Terry Castle, the literary critic whose essay about Austen’s letters to her sister, Cassandra, led to the uproar. Castle hadn’t actually claimed this, but had examined ‘the primitive adhesiveness – and underlying eros – of the sister-sister bond’.

To mark Austen’s 250th birthday, the LRB returns to Castle’s essay in the latest of the magazine’s series of ‘live essays’. Actors will read from Castle’s piece and the texts it interrogates – Austen’s letters, novels, her nephew’s family memoir, her lesbian contemporary Anne Lister’s diaries – and consider the backlash.

A live musical counterpoint accompanies the readings, arranged by Isobel Waller-Bridge, whose works include the score for the 2020 film version of Emma starring Anya Taylor-Joy.

Save the date… for a killer wedding! Award-nominated BookTokkers Busayo Matuluko and Kemi Ayorinde bring the vibe, discussing Busayo’s slick and addictive mystery thriller ’Til Death celebrating the nuances and dramas of Nigerian family and culture. Busayo will break down all the elements of a gripping mystery as they guide you through building the perfect ‘whodunnit’. Bring your best plot twists and red herrings, and join in the conversation.

In ’Til Death, true-crime-obsessed Lara is heading to Lagos for her cousin Dérin’s wedding. It’s going to be a holiday filled with glitzy dress-fittings and glamorous parties. But everything isn’t perfect in Dérin’s world. Lara puts her sleuthing knowledge to work – and soon she’s uncovering a web of secrets and malicious crimes…

Please bring your own notebook and pen to this event.

The Queen of Historical Fiction, Emma Carroll (The Houdini Inheritance, Letters From the Lighthouse and many more) shares tips on how to fire your imagination in this fun, interactive workshop masterclass, searching out potential ideas and inspirations to encourage you to keep writing.

Please bring your own notebook and pen to this event.

Come to the Family Garden for a pizza masterclass with Kitchen Garden Pizza. In this one-hour session your imagination and creativity will be fed along with your belly! You’ll get your hands messy with freshly grown and foraged ingredients, make and top your own dough and observe the pizzaioli at work at the wood-fired oven.

Dairy-free and gluten-free options available.

Come to the Family Garden for a pizza masterclass with Kitchen Garden Pizza. In this one-hour session your imagination and creativity will be fed along with your belly! You’ll get your hands messy with freshly grown and foraged ingredients, make and top your own dough and observe the pizzaioli at work at the wood-fired oven.

Dairy-free and gluten-free options available.

One of the UK’s most celebrated actors, Juliet Stevenson, talks about her work on stage and screen, and her political activism. Stevenson began her career with the Royal Shakespeare Company and has starred on screen in films including Truly, Madly, Deeply and Bend it Like Beckham.

Increasingly, she’s dedicated her time to activism, and is personally involved in supporting refugee communities and individuals as well as publicly engaged in campaigning for the humanitarian and legal rights of refugees and displaced people. She talks to author Mary Loudon about her work, the complexities of language, her love of painting and why she is so politically active.

Marking the 80th anniversary of the atom bomb, academic Frank Close takes us into the story of the pursuit of nuclear power, and looks at how an innocent and collaborative process was overwhelmed by the politics of the 1930s.

In his book Destroyer of Worlds, Close spans decades and continents to tell the full history of nuclear power and the extraordinary minds behind it, reassessing the roles of three remarkable women as well as looking at how the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki opened the way to a still more terrible possibility: a thermonuclear bomb, the so-called ‘backyard weapon’, that could destroy all life on earth – from anywhere.

Close is a Fellow of the Royal Society, Professor Emeritus of Theoretical Physics at Oxford University and Fellow Emeritus in Physics at Exeter College, Oxford.

Abi Daré is the winner of the inaugural Climate Fiction Prize with her novel, And So I Roar, follows fourteen-year-old Adunni from her life in Lagos, where she is excited to finally enrol in school, to her home village when she is summoned to face charges for events that are in fact caused by climate change.

The Climate Fiction Prize, in its inaugural year, celebrates the best fiction engaging with the climate crisis, offering readers new responses and ways of exploring the biggest story of our time.

The winner of the first ever Climate Fiction Prize will speak to novelist, poet and playwright Owen Sheers. They’ll examine what we mean by ‘climate fiction’ as an expanding literary space, the power of fiction in tackling the crisis, and the vital role the wider arts play in its solution. They’ll explore the ways in which fiction enables society to comprehend the impacts of climate change and manifest responses to combat apathy and doomism.

The short list is:

The Ministry of Time, by Kaliane Bradley

And So I Roar, by Abi Daré

Briefly Very Beautiful, by Roz Dineen

Orbital, by Samantha Harvey

The Morningside, by Téa Obreht

Feeling a little weird at times isn’t weird at all, in fact it’s entirely normal according to comedian, actor and writer Robin Ince. In Normally Weird and Weirdly Normal, Ince – who was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 52 – uses his own experiences to explore the neurodivergent experience and to ask what the point of ‘being normal’ really is, reminding us that it’s ok to be a little different.

In this event he shares the story of how he was diagnosed and what life was like before that point, and offers up personal anecdotes to explore the world of human behaviour. He talks to bibliotherapist, writer and painter, Ella Berthoud.

Dr Rachel Clarke, palliative care doctor and author of four acclaimed non-fiction books, including Dear Life and The Story of a Heart, leads this supportive and practical workshop focusing on building your skills in non-fiction writing.

Whether you’re writing memoir, history, travel or another type of narrative non-fiction, this interactive session will help you find the heart of your story, with generative writing exercises and a Q&A on craft, helping you to ensure your writing is clear, credible and engaging.

Arvon is the UK’s leading creative writing charity. Founded in 1968, it is known for its diverse creative writing courses and events led by leading authors. An online programme, ‘Arvon at Home’ offers virtual writing weeks, writing days, masterclasses and readings. Residential five-day courses are set in historic writing houses in inspiring countryside locations. Courses cover a range of genres including fiction, poetry, theatre, YA, creative non-fiction and more.

Defending freedom of expression, a central principle of any democratic society, is a main goal of the global PEN network, which was joined by Wales PEN Cymru in 2014. But what does freedom of speech mean in today’s divided world? Three writers and free speech advocates discuss the concept with poet and academic Mererid Hopwood.

Fara Dabhoiwala is Senior Research Scholar and Professor of History at Princeton and author of What is Free Speech? Menna Elfyn is a poet, author and President of Wales PEN Cymru. Burhan Sönmez, novelist and President of PEN International, grew up in a Kurdish village in Turkey at a time when his language was stigmatised and banned in education.

Zainab Umar, vice chair of Book Aid International, is joined by authors Sita Brahmachari and Kit de Waal to discuss what is lost when people don’t have access to books.

In our rapidly changing world, the power of the book to teach us to use our imaginations, empathise with other people, seek knowledge and think critically, has never been so important. Yet for many children and adults around the world, access to books and libraries remains limited or non-existent – and in too many cases these vital spaces are under threat.

Brahmachari won the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize with her debut Artichoke Hearts. She is Writer in Residence at Islington Centre for Refugees and Migrants and an Amnesty International ambassador. De Waal worked for fifteen years in criminal and family law, and has written training manuals on adoption and foster care for members of the judiciary. Her first novel My Name is Leon was shortlisted for the Costa Book Award.