Storymoja Nairobi 2012

The TikTok community is reshaping the publishing world, bringing literature to life for a new generation of readers. Join some of the community’s leading voices to hear more about the impact of BookTok.

Reena from Bollywood Dreams Dance Company will teach you some dynamic moves in this fun Bollywood dance workshop. You’ll learn hand gestures, some technique work and choreography. By the end of the session you’ll have formed a fun Bollywood routine to take away and show your friends!

The television presenter – recently seen on screens on Great British Menu – will chat to comedian Cariad Lloyd while she demonstrates recipes from her long-awaited first cookbook, The Pepperpot Diaries. Drawing on her heritage, Andi Oliver’s recipes include cherished ingredients and vibrant flavours used in traditional and new ways, creating simple dishes that will bring the unbeatable tastes of Caribbean cooking to your table. Join Oliver for a mouthwatering conversation about all things food and family.

Join us for a wild literary fleadh (festival) to celebrate the republication of Timothy O’Grady and Steve Pyke’s photographic novel Could Read the Sky after 26 years, and the paperback publication of Patrick McCabe’s magnificent shape-shifting epic, Poguemahone. McCabe and O’Grady will dissect the complex relationship between Ireland and Britain, from the largely invisible lives of workers who built the roads and railways, to the songs and folklore both cultures share, and the long and bitter history of violence which has often obscured this deeper cultural exchange. Their conversation will be punctuated by readings from both books. ​In conversation with John Mitchinson.

Get a world exclusive preview of The Storm We Made, set to be published in January 2024, and take home a free advance copy of the book. 1930s British Malaya: one woman’s desire to change her destiny shapes the future of a colonised nation. Desperate for a bigger life, housewife Cecily is beckoned into a life of espionage by a charismatic Japanese general. But when Cecily becomes entrenched in his plans, and inadvertently in his marriage, she helps to usher in a war which threatens to destroy her family, community, and country.

Vanessa Chan will talk to Tracy Chevalier about her debut novel, changing careers, the long process of writing, and the even stranger process of selling a novel around the world; and Tracy Chevalier will share her experience as a bestselling author, being involved in film and opera adaptations of her work, and thinking herself into the past in order to write it.

Your ticket includes a free, exclusive advance copy of The Storm We Made.

BBC Radio 3’s Lunchtime Concert series is presented by Sarah Walker and explores the music of Schubert and others. This last of four recitals broadcast during the Hay Festival week offers a popular work, Schubert’s Piano Trio No 2 in E flat, D929, performed by the Amatis Trio, regarded as one of the leading ensembles of its generation. Lea Hausmann (violin), Samuel Shepherd (cello), and Mengjie Han (piano) are celebrated for their energy, insight, creativity, communication and passion.

Recorded for broadcast on BBC Radio 3. Please arrive in good time.

Calling all detectives! Robin Stevens, author of the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize winning Murder Most Unladylike series is coming to help you investigate The Ministry of Unladylike Activity (clue: it’s the start of a brand new series!) Robin will uncover her top writing tips, shed light on the tricks that can help you create the perfect murder mystery and unveil the inspiration behind her new team of detectives. You’ll also get the chance to put your own sleuthing skills to the test and ask your burning questions, like any good private eye.

Reena from Bollywood Dreams Dance Company will teach you some dynamic moves in this fun Bollywood dance workshop. You’ll learn hand gestures, some technique work and choreography. By the end of the session you’ll have formed a fun Bollywood routine to take away and show your friends!

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.

She's back! Internationally renowned poet, novelist and prophet Margaret Atwood returns to Hay. This new collection of 15 stories explore the warp and weft of experience, from two best friends disagreeing about their shared past, to the right way to stop someone from choking; from a daughter determining if her mother really is a witch, to what to do with inherited relics such as World War II parade swords. They feature beloved cats, a confused snail, Martha Gellhorn, George Orwell, mathematician Hypatia of Alexandria, a cabal of elderly female academics, and an alien tasked with retelling human fairy tales. At the heart of the collection is a sequence that follows a married couple as they travel the road together, the moments big and small that make up a long life of love – and what comes after.

There will not be a book signing after this event.

This year marks the 400-year anniversary of the publication of Mr William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies, known today simply as the First Folio. Arguably the most influential secular book of all time, when it hit bookstalls in 1623 it was a landmark in the history of printing and a costly object, and it has gone on to have an incalculable impact on language, education, publishing, the theatre, tourism and a host of other industries. The Associate Professor of Shakespeare and Early Modern Drama at the University of Birmingham explains who put together the First Folio and why, and how its makers created ‘Shakespeare’ as we know him today. Dr Laoutaris’s talk is based on his book Shakespeare’s Book: The Intertwined Lives Behind the First Folio.

Memoir, autofiction, a collection of fragments: Martin Shaw’s Bardskull can be read in a number of ways. An authority on mythology, Shaw is keen to liberate it from the library and put it back in the centre of our messy, fear-filled lives. Bardskull is built around three journeys into the heart of Dartmoor. From the deep myths of Dartmoor itself to Arthurian legends and folk tales from India, Persia and more, each story in Bardskull comes as a challenge and a threat. Shaw discusses the book, and reads from it, offering the audience the chance to make up their own mind about what, exactly, Bardskull is. Shaw talks to Rosie Goldsmith, journalist and Director of the European Literature Network.

The Magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck on 6 February 2023 in southern Turkey close to the Syrian border and was followed by powerful aftershocks. More than 50,000 people lost their lives in the region as buildings collapsed. Research is now being carried out by Turkish teams and other structural engineers with the aim of learning lessons from the earthquake and finding ways to improve the design of buildings and the construction process to make them more resilient. The successes of the buildings that are still intact and perform perfectly well are as important as the neighbouring buildings that have collapsed. Hear from one of those leading the research – Emily So, Professor of Architectural Engineering at Cambridge University, a chartered civil engineer and Director of the Cambridge University Centre for Risk in the Built Environment (CURBE).

Get ready for an energetic freestyle performance from wordsmith, hip hop artist and poet Karl Nova. He’ll bring to life pieces from his latest book, telling stories that are humorous, personal and inspirational.

The Curious Case of Karl Nova is Karl’s follow-up to his debut Rhythm and Poetry, which won the Centre for Literacy in Primary Poetry Award (CLiPPA) in 2018.

Reena from Bollywood Dreams Dance Company will teach you some dynamic moves in this fun Bollywood dance workshop. You’ll learn hand gestures, some technique work and choreography. By the end of the session you’ll have formed a fun Bollywood routine to take away and show your friends!

Charles Ignatius Sancho lived in Georgian London, where his adventures included meeting the king and writing and playing highly acclaimed music. Among the fun, he also became the first Black person to vote in Britain and led the fight against slavery. The story of this historical figure, largely untold before, has been brought to life by actor Paterson Joseph in his debut novel. Joseph, star of shows such as Noughts + Crosses, talks to historian David Olusoga about how the book began life as a one-man play and why Sancho’s story is best told through an epistolary novel.

Spoken word collective Landschaft blend multilingual poems with hip hop, electropunk and video art. This trio – Grigory Semenchuk (Ukrainian), Ulrike Almut Sandig and Sascha Conrad (both German) – present an exhilarating fusion of techno, poetry and film that crosses language boundaries. No German or Ukrainian required.

From Lewis Carroll to Elizabeth Bishop, Marilyn Monroe to Emily Blunt, Aneurin Bevan to Joe Biden and King George VI, some of our greatest writers, actors, politicians and more have had a stammer that has shaped their relationship with language and influenced their creativity. Join poet and playwright Owen Sheers, patron of the British stammering association STAMMA, to discuss how a different kind of speech can gift a different kind of voice, with authors Margaret Drabble, Zaffar Kunial and Hannah Tovey.

Robert Hughes’ landmark BBC TV series and book The Shock of the New, more than 40 years old, became a seminal text for art history students and modern art enthusiasts. But a lot has happened in the intervening years. Does its assessment of modern art stand up to scrutiny today? Or has the moment come to question some of the assumptions that underpin Hughes’ argument? Will Gompertz, the Barbican Centre’s artistic director and a Hay Festival 2023 Thinker in Residence, discusses this famous text with Gus Casely-Hayford, cultural historian and director of V&A East, Veronica Ryan, winner of the Turner Prize 2022, and Shanay Jhaveri, head of visual arts at the Barbican.

Enchant your fiction in this workshop with bestselling novelist Natasha Pulley. She will cover how to come up with the first idea, through to early plot structuring and world building. This hands-on workshop will include plenty of generative exercises to stimulate and inspire, and is suitable for those new to writing and those who have been wrestling with an epic concept for years but struggling to get it onto the page. Pulley is the author of The Watchmaker of Filigree Street and The Bedlam Stacks, and teaches on Bath Spa University’s Creative Writing BA.