Hay Festival has announced the programme for Hay Festival Forum Dallas 2026 in Texas this autumn, 16–18 October, with over 30 artists and 20 events.
Now in its ninth year, this year’s Forum offers big stage conversations, workshops and book clubs in venues across the city, including The Texas Theatre, Dallas Public Library, Whose Books, Oak Cliff Assembly, and The Wild Detectives bookstore.
Confirmed guests include Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Richard Ford; journalists Nikole Hannah-Jones, Jan Martínez Ahrens and Nilo Tabrizy; philosopher Mariana Alessandri; filmmaker Anna Pazos and Sama’an Ashrawi; novelists Brenda Navarro, Claudia Piñeiro, Austyn Wohlers, Chris Kraus, Jorge Comensal; musicians Lee Ranaldo, Benjamín Kumantuk Xuxpë and rapper Bun B; historians Kelly Lytle Hernández and Petro Rivera-Rideau; co-founder of TED Talks June Cohen; plus there will be a live performance of Symffoni’r Môr Mawr – A Transatlantic Symphony by Welsh composer Katie Jenkins.
The bilingual programme promises a world of different perspectives, celebrating the range of backgrounds, languages, and experiences represented by its guests, while bridging the border with local writing stars and headline names from further afield.
Explore the full Hay Festival Forum Dallas 2026 programme online now and book tickets at hayfestival.org/forum/dallas/programme
Since its founding in 2018, eight editions of Hay Festival Forum Dallas have taken place, featuring guests including Viet Thanh Nguyen, Valeria Luiselli, Mariana Enriquez, Douglas Stuart, John Valliant, Alma Guillermoprieto, Jon Lee Anderson, Hernan Diaz, Michelle Tea, Pilar Quintana, Ben Fountain, Emiliano Monge, Juan Cardenas, Dolores Reyes, and many more.
The event takes place with the support of SMU Project Poetica, UTD Centre for Translation and Bass School and the City of Dallas.
Hay Festival International Director Cristina Fuentes La Roche said:
“Dallas, it’s back! This year’s Hay Festival Forum will bring together the very best writers and thinkers locally and internationally for a global conversation of ideas, curated especially for you. Dallas is a city full of fresh perspectives and bilingual storytelling to inspire – the perfect home for our next Hay Festival event. Please join us!”
Hay Festival Forum Dallas curator Javier García del Moral said:
“Hay Festival Forum Dallas has always been about bringing different voices, ideas and communities together. This year we’re taking that idea further than ever, with writers, journalists, artists and thinkers from Dallas and around the world coming together for three days of conversations across the city. We’re incredibly excited about the program we’ve put together and can’t wait to share it with our city.”
Hay Festival, one of the world’s leading cultural charities, was founded in Hay-on-Wye, Wales in 1987, providing audiences with dynamic platforms to come together to share ideas, different perspectives and provoke conversations that can create a better world.
Expansion of the Dallas event is the latest chapter of Hay Festival’s global projects, forging creative connections across four continents with year-round events, partnerships and far-reaching education programmes.
Programme in depth
Award-winning storytelling leads the programme as Claudia Piñeiro (Cathedrals) explores her writing process across novels, theatre, film and television and the questions that have moved her throughout; Chris Kraus, author of the cult classic I Love Dick, discusses her latest novel, The Four Spent the Day Together; while Bolivian writer Rodrigo Hasbún joins Mexican novelist Brenda Navarro on the ways writers transform personal experience into literature; writers Jorge Comensal, Yásnaya Elena A. Gil and Gabi Martínez discuss their relationship with nature; and award-winning writer and historian Adrian de Leon discusses his deeply personal account of family, migration and his relationship with his father (Notes from a Waywarm Son); writer and musician Austyn Wohlers discusses her acclaimed debut novel, Hothouse Bloom; while editors A.J. Eversole and P.C. Verrone discuss Back for Blood: Never Whistle at Night Part II, the second volume in the bestselling Indigenous horror anthology series.
As the United States of America marks its 250th anniversary, journalists and writers reflect on identity and belonging as Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist Richard Ford discusses the complexities of contemporary American life; and National Book Award honorees Kelly Lytle Hernández and Nilo Tabrizy offer historical contexts fueling current U.S. immigration policies; Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and creator of The 1619 Project, Nikole Hannah-Jones, discusses history, race and education through the stories America tells about itself; and a panel of journalists from The Atlantic examine the questions underpinning American life today.
Hay Festival Global’s South to North conversations continue to spotlight voices from the Global South as writers of a new Hay Festival publication, Liliana Colanzi, Edmundo Paz Soldán and Yásnaya Elena Aguila, come together for a special event to discuss the General Archive of the Indies in Seville. The project, Unveiling Stories, developed by Hay Festival, Anagrama and Charco Press, invited contemporary Latin American writers to explore the Archive as a starting point for new writing.
Big ideas take centre stage as June Cohen, co-founder of TED Talks, explores what ancient and traditional ways of living can teach us about some of the challenges of contemporary life; Dana A. Williams, scholar of African American literature, explores how Toni Morrison championed Black writers to transform American publishing; El País celebrates its 50th anniversary with a conversation about the changing role of Spanish-language journalism; philosopher Mariana Alessandri (Night Vision: Seeing Ourselves Through Dark Moods) and writer and filmmaker Anna Pazos challenge the pressure to always seek happiness and suppress darker moods; meanwhile architecture critic for The Dallas Morning News, Mark Lamster examines the city Dallas is rapidly becoming.
Poetry and music take centre stage as authors and scholars Vanessa Díaz and Petra R. Rivera-Rideau discuss P FKN R: How Bad Bunny Became the Global Voice of Puerto Rican Resistance; Palestinian-American writer, filmmaker, and music journalist Sama’an Ashrawi joins acclaimed poet, essayist and cultural critic Hanif Abdurraqib and legendary Texan rapper Bun B for a conversation about music, writing, family; Michael Zilkha, founder and publisher of ZE Books and co-founder of the influential ZE Records, joins Nina Hervé, co-director of Rough Trade Books, and poet Will Burns to explore why record labels have moved into publishing; and panel of musicians Ryan Davis, Cassandra Jenkins, Brett Eugene Ralph and Lee Ranaldo discuss the music and poetry of David Berman.
Performance is woven into the programme as Welsh composer Katie Jenkins opens the festival with Symffoni’r Môr Mawr – A Transatlantic Symphony; and writer, linguist and Indigenous rights advocate Yásnaya Elena A. Gil joins the Ayuujk (Mixe) musical group Kumantukxuxpë for a live performance combining narrative, poetry, and music; and Elkin Pautt, the DJ and cultural producer behind the original AfroPerreo parties, joins Max Power of Boom Boom Pum for Todo Bien, a new night building on the energy and spirit of one of The Wild Detectives’ most beloved dance parties.