Hay Festival Scribblers Tour takes five exceptional YA writers direct to thousands of Year 7-10 school pupils across Wales next February in inspiring free, in-person events hosted at Welsh universities: University of South Wales, Swansea University, Aberystwyth University, Cardiff Metropolitan University, and Wrexham Glyndwr University.
Running 7-11 February and 14-18 February, the Scribblers Tour aims to engage and encourage the next generation in storytelling and conversation, inspiring empathy and creativity. Now in its eleventh year, the tour gives pupils a chance to visit their nearest university and experience a taste of life on campus.
Compèred by YA author Jenny Valentine, sessions for Year 7-8 pupils will feature interactive activities with poet, playwright, and bestselling novelist Kiran Millwood Hargrave and one of the UK’s most respected spoken word artists Steven Camden, while sessions for Year 9-10 pupils will be led by actor, playwright, screenwriter and director Manjeet Mann and children’s author, performance poet and playwright Joseph Coelho.
Aine Venables, education manager at Hay Festival, said: “Every May in Hay-on-Wye thousands of young people join us to meet their writing heroes and our Scribblers Tour takes this a step further by bringing Hay Festival direct to them. In these free Festival days we want to start conversations with young people, hear their voices and celebrate the power of writing and reading for pleasure. We’re delighted to welcome this star line-up of writers to our programme; Kiran Millwood Hargrave, Steven Camden, Manjeet Mann and Joseph Coelho make for an inspiring team to guide pupils on their creative journeys.”
Minister for Education and Welsh Language, Jeremy Miles said: “I’m pleased that we are able to support Hay Festival’s Scribblers Tour as it returns to in-person events this year, giving learners the opportunity to visit university campuses across Wales to meet inspirational writers.
“Storytelling is at the heart of what makes us human, and the Scribblers Tour is a wonderful opportunity for learners to be inspired by reading and writing, and to develop their own creative writing skills in an interactive way.”
Hay Festival Scribblers Tour is funded by the Welsh Government and is part of Hay Festival Foundation’s wider outreach and education work that includes the free Programme for Schools and the Beacons Project. Over the past year more than 12,000 school pupils have engaged with Hay Festival events live or online with previous events available to view free at hayfestival.org/education.
For more information visit hayfestival.org/scribblers/the-scribblers-tour.aspx. And to support Hay Festival Foundation by becoming a Hay Festival Friend, Patron or Benefactor, visit hayfestival.org/foundation.
About the speakers
Steven Camden, aka Polarbear, is a poet, playwright and novelist who has performed and collaborated all over the world. Internationally performing his work since 2007, Camden has graced stages from Kuala Lumpur to California via Glastonbury and The Royal Shakespeare Company. His work has featured on BBC Radio 1, 3 and 6. He has written three Young Adult novels for HarperCollins: Tape, It's About Love, and Nobody Real. His poetry collection Everything All At Once was published in July 2018.
Joseph Coelho is a children’s author, performance poet and playwright based in London. His debut poetry collection, Werewolf Club Rules, was the 2015 winner of the CLPE CLiPPA Poetry Award. His second book, Overheard in a Tower Block, was shortlisted for the 2018 CLPE CLiPPA Poetry Award and is longlisted for the 2019 UKLA Book Awards. His work has poetry and performance at its heart, drawing on over 16 years’ experience running dynamic creative literacy sessions in schools. He aims to inspire young people through stories and characters that they can recognise.
Manjeet Mann is an actor, playwright, screenwriter and director. She is the founder of Run The World – an organization that works with women and girls from marginalized backgrounds and helps to empower them through sport and storytelling. Her latest book is The Crossing, while her previous title, Run, Rebel, was published in 2020 and was the Shadowers' Choice for the Carnegie Medal.
Kiran Millwood Hargrave is a poet, playwright, and bestselling novelist. Her debut novel for children The Girl of Ink & Stars won the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, and the British Book Awards Children’s Book of the Year, both in 2017. Her work has been shortlisted and longlisted for other major prizes including the Costa Award, and the CILIP Carnegie Award.