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Emma Barnett and Stacey Dooley

A Love Letter to Remarkable Mothers

Hay Festival 2025, 

Award-winning broadcasters Emma Barnett (BBC Radio 4’s Today programme) and Stacey Dooley (Stacey Dooley Sleeps Over) take a personal, political and cultural look at motherhood and the impact it has on women. The pair’s honest and open conversation will look at the experience of becoming a mother and the physical and mental work required in motherhood, celebrating mothers of all kinds.

Barnett’s Maternity Service was written in snatched moments after the birth of her second child, and is a heartfelt and reassuring look at what it really feels like to be on maternity leave. In Dear Minnie, written after she had her first child, Dooley brings her trademark empathy and investigative skill to an entirely new ‘frontline’, exploring the varied perspectives of mothers today.