Picture the scene. It’s autumn 2023. Gosia and I see each other at a launch event. She’s written an incredible piece for a book, Cymru and I. It’s just a taste of things to come. We get our headshots taken, I can’t get my hair to fall right, I’m too hot. The photographer tells me to sit still. I say, I am sitting still. But I know I’m not.
After, we discuss writing with a new friend, Beth. I talk about how being part of the 2023 Representing Wales cohort is keeping me honest, I’m writing at a pace I never have before. We discuss what we want to do next. We all agree we want to apply for Hay Festival Writers at Work. We imagine what it’ll be like to do it together.
2024 rolls around, I can’t, as it happens, apply for Hay Festival Writers at Work, I have scheduling conflicts. I’m going from Barry to Wolverhampton to London to Barry to Criccieth to London to Barry. I look at the Hay festival schedule, say to Brian, we can squeeze in two days, can’t we? We book into a hotel a town or two over and we squeeze our first trip to Hay Festival in between one of the London to Barry legs.
I bump into Gosia at the entrance to the Festival, she’s smoking a cigarette, I’m staring at the bunting. Neither of us knew the other would be here. She tells me to come to the Writers at Work tent, the readings are about to start. I listen in awe as Hammad Rind fluently speaks the Welsh he’s only just learned, Joshua Jones reads from his perfect collection of short stories, Local Fires. The writers tell me they are busy. Busy, busy, busy but having the time of their lives. Sounds brilliant, I reply. I’ll apply next year.
It’s spring, 2025. I’ve finished writing my short story collection, finally. Gosia’s memoir is available for pre-order. We’re both announced as Writers at Work and it feels like the right time. There’s six weeks to go until Hay Festival, we’re running on pure adrenaline. What will we read? What will we wear? Who will we meet? I think it’s not possible to sustain excitement for that long. Time passes and proves me wrong. When we reach the festival site, my Fitbit tells me my heart rate is 104.
I meet authors whose work has shaped the essence of who I am. Everyone asks how Writers at Work is. I say I am having the time of my life. I mean it. I keep a notebook for writing and a notebook for thoughts, I move from events to workshops and back again, trying to breathe in all of Hay Festival’s energy. It’s the first time I’ve truly ever understood what it is to be a kid in a candy store. I am living inside literature.
Each writer that visits tells us how they write. Some wake up early, some ride the wave when it comes. Some say the living is the writing. I live, I live, I live. I take photos and notes to remember. I wish I could play every day back like a movie about a writer who visits Hay Festival and finds herself.
We do our readings, mine’s a funny story that I love, about a woman with an imaginary boyfriend. For the rest of the week people I don’t know stop me to ask me how it ends. It makes me feel light inside, gives me a glimpse of what being a writer can be.
Ten days is over, Brian drops Gosia off, and I cry. I say, I had the best time. I made so many friends. It’s as important to me as the writing.
Jade E. Bradford is one of the Hay Festival 2025 Writers at Work, a creative development programme for emerging Welsh talent at Hay Festival Hay-on-Wye with the support of Literature Wales and Folding Rock, funded by Arts Council of Wales.
Jade, an author and communications and engagement professional based in South Wales, holds an MA in Creative Writing. Her short fiction has been published in Wasafiri, Breadfruit Magazine, and Rowayat. Her adult short story, Drifting, won first place in the 2024 Breadfruit Magazine Prize, while her YA short story, An Embarrassment of Janets was highly commended in the 2023 Faber FAB Prize for Children’s Literature. Jade was selected for the 2023/24 Literature Wales Representing Wales cohort and the 2024 Black British Book Festival Writers on the Rise.